Roleplay, Plots and the World.

.....Ok seriously this is the solution? ignore it all? really?
Thats....wow, im just so dissapointed right now, that no-one thought maybe, just MAYBE, the newspaper sensationalised the story a bit? i mean....it happened on the 1/9/10, yesterday as i write this post.
The newspaper article came out the same day, so...you think they counted over a thousand bodies in one day? or maybe they guessed the number of people injured stating thats how many people were around at the time but they havent checked for survivors before running the story yet.

In fact maybe the articles meant thats how many go to the school and so was a potential body count if the children had been at school.
You know what im doing right now? im editing the story just a bit and yet still recognising it, its called a compromise, its what i do.
We arent the devs, we dont have ultimate authority over any plot except our own, and even then there will be times where we must adapt to suit the roleplay going on.
So floating fatty suggested a change in the number of victims, CB did, halved it even, still too high and yet....did you send another message? did you think to talk it through with him, discuss it like fellow roleplayers should and come up with a compromise....or did you start a thread detailing everything wrong with it because it 'forced' your character to be heroic for once, maybe earn his licence.

You want to ignore the death toll, fine, couldnt argue with you there, it is a bit extreme to say the least, a dozen children died, students or hell just walking past the school, maybe even some dilinquents climbing on the school roof like they seem to always do, who knows.
Ignoring the post altogether though? what if someone around you doesnt want to ignore it? do you ignore them? does their opinion not count? whoever you roleplay with now is limited by what you do and do not believe has happened.

Ignoring something existed is NEVER an option unless all those involved agree, and i do mean all.

This, all this? top of my head stuff, i looked at it and thought how could it make more sense, not how can i get him to do what i want, you took a side in an argument that didnt exist until you made it, its wrong and i hope to god that people will reconsider all this because i truly dont want the CoX world to be divided.
Oh and by the way when talking about the actual school times in Rhode Island....yeah they dont have war walls, super heroes and jack of irons plodding around either, best not to bring that into it thinking its the most spectacular argument ever.

Regardless of my personal opinion, this is Big Games plot, Cactus Brawlers satanic love child, and Pious and Bathorys sg's that will suffer the consequences, right not they are the law according to me on this subject, i support them 100% and if i think theres something wrong ill use the ooc open season thread they created to voice my opinion or politely have a PM conversation with anyone until i think its been handled right, why? because thats what it was made for chump.

^ Some people should learn to read. Specifically, my original post; where I quite clearly stated this thread was NOT made to judge CB's incident, but to discuss world affecting plots in general.

That's not how the thread has turned out, but that wasn't what it was written for.

As for ignoring the plot; that's my decision. If I don't want to have to deal with something which would have world affecting consequences, then I won't deal with it. If others choose to roll with it, then I'll just ignore any comments they make regarding it.

If you want me to do any different, you can pay my sub.

Oh, and I did PM him again, but he never replied and frankly, I didn't expect one.

And finally, cut out the "fatty" remarks. My handle on these boards is FloatingFatMan. Accepted variants of that are FFM or Floaty; nothing else.

I left the thread yesterday to RP in-game. CB is getting told off here and it seems to me he needs all the luck for it. He's cited unfairness and double standards.

Back to the original discussion, I am still of the opinion that in a shared universe such as Union, we shouldn't always expect to be able to avoid or ignore the occurrence of what's happening around us, for whatever personal reason... except if it's a plot so silly its Dev-level world-changing. Common sense alone says this shouldn't be done but if and when it is, I understand the only reasonable option left is to isolate that player and his/her plot.

In CB's case, this is not what he intended to happen with St. John. I don't think he would knowingly do a story at Devs-level magnitude. But with a high number casualty, it seems that's what St. Johns has become. CB doesn't mind renumbering the scale and that's a notion I support. Whether he plays the papers's quote as inaccurate and that only twelve kids were actually playing in the school at the time of the attack, is up to him.

What I like about the plot is the scope of opportunity it offers to those RP'ers who would normally feel left out with their characters for whatever reason. Here is a news article about a brief yet startling terror attack that can reach everyone who wishes to help.

If you'd prefer to avoid it all, though in my opinion one should at least take note of the occurrences in these plots IC and OOC; I believe there is still an out. Only moments after the terror attack, following a shocking and inevitable public outcry, the United States's Federal Bureau of Super-powered Affairs have become involved (as will soon be revealed IC) and they are competent and accomplished enough for any hero to leave the situation to them... assuming the casualty numbers aren't so high it's unrealistic for any hero to overlook. This, as has been established, is something CB is prepared to address.

This thread, however bitter on the tongue, has so far, at least been productive in bringing the issues of concern (plot magnitudes and where to draw the line of common sense) to the masses for debate, and as a result has clarified, I hope, that the St. John's Open Season sub-plot will continue to be well handled.

You're forgetting a few minor details as long as the death toll remainds this ludircisly high.

Namley that most of our characters cannot just pass it on to someone else, it's not in thier natures to ignore a disaster like that, just as we couldn't ignore the Rikti war.

Now imagine if I were to run a plot with some SGs that you wern't inrested in, and this resulted in Satan himself popping up in Perez Park and declairing his dominion over earth, could Pious and the Nighhunters just shrug and leave that to other heroes?

Ok i was rushed before as i was on my break and tbh a little bit annoyed, so i apologise for being a git, really, im sorry for being a total *** and i really didnt mean to have a go.
I was just trying to say that simply ignoring a major event or a character is....just wrong, i mean, your ignoring what happens, technically re-writing history right? so why not just re-write the number?

When anyone talks about the massacre they will most likely talk about how horrible it all was, all the children that died and what not, i mean i doubt people will give exact numbers, either 12 or 1000 is still a massive tradegy in my opinion, obviously not everyones but im simply trying to say that ignoring the whole event seems like the last resort kind of thing.

You can ignore the entire event or just one number, i would always choose the number, lower it myself and if anyone really did want to go into specifics then that you could argue with, though i doubt anyone would go into exact details about an event like that.

I realise that the forum didnt start like this and i am sorry for implying otherwise, i realise that looking at the very first post of this thread, my post doesnt apply at all.
Right now however im talking about CB's giant robot attack, it needs a proper solution or a compromise, not people having a go at other people, obviously i realise thats a tad hypocritical of me, once again im sorry for that, i wasnt thinking.
Hopefully CB will jump back in and maybe a real compromise can be reached, one that makes all involved, or not involved, happy.

As an American player - I'll have to say, something such as the aforementioned plot would definitely get the attention of EVERY SINGLE AMERICAN, and would DEFINITELY result in outcries for war, etc, and so on. Even in such fictional settings.

However, what everyone is discussing in this thread truly breaks down into a moot point. Everything we do in the game and/or on these forums are complete works of fiction, presented to the masses to interpret how they see fit. Wide scale events such as Rikti invasions and invasions of undead don't go unnoticed by the player base because those events are capable of being TRIGGERED by said player base on a whim, and players will deal with such events in any manner they see fit (mostly by collaborating together to stop these invasions, otherwise, these events get ignored.) In-game canon presents us with an Earth inhabited by super-powered beings of ALL kinds, yes even Deific-Incarnate types, with a history of alien invasion, heroic sacrifices, ungodly death tolls...and provides us, the players, a way to interact with this world - to create characters that will either prevent or avenge such atrocious events, or cause or attempt to create such atrocities. All provided in a fictional environment where the only things to be harmed would be a person's feelings or ego depending on the player.

Then there's several different ways to even play in this fictional world: casually, hardcore, PvP, soft roleplay, hardline roleplay, creative roleplay, farmer, powerleveler, god-modder ... the differing play styles are probably as unique as the individual player. What we're gonna look at here are the roleplayers. There are those roleplayers that RP in-game AND on the forums, in-game only RP'ers, forum-only RP'ers, hell there's probably those that only RP in the Architect system. I place myself in a sort of casual/near forum-only RP type category in that I RP in-game from time-to-time, and when I do, usually only in the D, and mostly observing other RP'ers. Mainly, I prefer forum RP over all others because - well, one's only true limitation in forum-RP is their own mind. Players are not typically restricted to the in-game mechanics when it comes to forum-RP, and longer backgrounds can be written up on the forums. I have a couple of very good references of such ((Open RPs)) to direct everyone to, but will refrain from doing so in this posting.

So, here's the thing: When you start up ((Open RP)) threads, especially on the forums, even with limits in place; you're gonna have some people that will find something, some kind of plot-hook or something or other, to create such a stir that has been done. Most of the RP folk have already made their stance concerning the certain event that so violently killed off 1,000 schoolchildren. Personally, even as a work of fiction, that's a horrific event. However, as a work of fiction, for a game that allows players to react/prevent/cause/just plain ol' be involved with such atrocities, said event is quite a useful hook in order to provoke the currently involved players of that plotline to DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. It can also be seen as a potential hook to bring in a few more players into the plotline to avenge the loss of life, or whatever other purpose an inventive player might create for their character to even be involved in such an event. If I had a character involved in such a thing? Well, a heroic character of mine would be so absolutely outraged that they’d probably fly off the handle to where they’d obsess about delivering a righteous amount of vengeance and justice to the perpetrators and then dive into a crusade to prevent further atrocities of such magnitude (because in my specific case as a player, said character would be reacting to such events.) At the very least, heroic characters would attempt to rescue any survivors and prevent further casualties/injuries. Now, I suppose you’re gonna ask – what if your character was of a villainous nature? Well, who knows … some of my villains MIGHT be outraged if they even heard of this event occurring, while others would – well, actually some of my REALLY villainous characters would probably rejoice with glee, or even be like: Well why didn’t I just do that to begin with? Currently I’m forum RP’ing a villain character that once ruled an entire planet with an iron-fist for five hundred years and enslaved/murdered a good portion of that planet’s humanoid populace. I see endless possibilities with any sort of character.

As players of a super-hero/super-villain based MMO, each and every one of us can actually provide the rest of the player community with innumerous scenarios of epic proportion, be it in AE with its fabulous creative outlet, just plainly in-game, or openly in the Roleplaying section of the forums. Many jump at the chance to just TELL THEIR OWN story, in their own way. In fact, there’s probably quite a few of these authors that feel it’s their very duty to do such a thing, to truly test the heroic nature of those that play this game, or to see how truly evil others can be – to what lengths people are willing to push any sort of character within this unique medium. To even have such a discussion as to what level storytellers can limit their visions to goes against the very process of storytelling, especially given such creative mediums to do so in. However, each player provides differing views, brings a unique voice to all stories they read/play through – so when a collective group of players collaborate on a plotline that others can interact in, they tend to lay down their own rules and limits.

Every single ((Open RP)) GM provides their own story with its own unique plot, for other players to expand upon, to bring in their own sub-plots, for the betterment or detriment of that story. They do this simply because they’ve been provided the means to do so, and can do so without it having any sort of major impact on those players that would rather play the game their own way. It’s not like anything provided in AE or on the forums for that matter will actually become official game canon, anyway.

I see there is a dissconnect here Kyzock, you perhaps do no understand how things work over in the Unionverse.

What we try to pull of is a shared (Both forum and in game) RP unvierse in which all our characters and plots are.

So no, for us 'every single OpenRP thread' is -not- a unqiue storyline seperate from everything else, it's somthingly intrisically tied into game RP and our characters.

As you say such a massive event would lead to massive crusades against those responsable from hero and villian alike, from NPC heros and rganiations too, simpley put as we've stated in this thread, teh responce would be the total descrutction of The Court and CB's character, as well as a responce so large we can't pull it off.

And this is where ignoring it prooves ahrd, because we're ina shared universe, the reaction is beyond us and so thus we've taken this thread to point that out. That it needs to be toned down to fit int the shared universe properly.

As you call it a shared roleplay experience, it would sadly be a shared RP experience for ONLY those that would currently be involved in the plotline.

If the entirety of the Union server took part in this shared RP experience, then perhaps this might be problematic. If this shared RP experience spilled over to other servers, in other countries and definitely here in the US, then yes, there would be some sort of repercussion to such an event. However, this is only an event shared on one server of this game, and I honestly have no idea how many of you on Union are participating in this particular storyline.

Needless to say, not everyone is jumping into this particular course of roleplay, especially now given the committed atrocity in that one plot. It's also obvious that not everyone on Union is involved in the one specific plot, but may be involved in others. It seems to be quite a tangled web, at least to me.

My suggestion, to the Unionverse Roleplayers that would want such a shared, in-game/forum roleplay enviornment to continue, is to establish limits accordingly. If a particular GM wants to start up a new plot, it would be the responsibility of that GM (or group of writers/GMs) to lay down any ground rules before the RP begins, to inform potential players of such limits as "Your characters aren't allowed to just off a mass amount of the populace" or whatnot.

I will be so bold to point out that any and all reaction to such situations as these is not above and beyond the capabilities of any of your in-game characters. Story arcs can be created in AE to represent such things, the villains can be created as NPCs, hell, each and every one of you can call out the said creator of chaos to the arena for a no-holds barred slugfest of profound consequence (arena safety is off, loser's character "dies" [in some extreme cases, loser deletes toon but that's not an option since so many people invest so much time in their characters.] Perhaps a lengthy period of inactivity can be used to represent a death timer, after which said person can resurrect that character.)

The NA servers, German server, and any other servers aren't gonna come to a halt. I highly doubt the entirety of the Union server is going to come crashing down, either.

One final suggestion: Perhaps you can limit/restrict such large-scale events to forum posting only. This may actually turn out to be the best possible solution, as it provides a simple, easy compromise for all parties involved.

*Pinches the bridge of his nose*

It's a shared RP Universe, the "Unionverse" consider it Reality Upisilon Kappa if you must.

But yes, events happening in the unionverse by definition invovle everyone from teh unionverse, even if it's jsut as simple as them reading teh newspaper and going "Oh would you looka t that the Nighthunters are trying to slay vampries, that's neat".

But yes, entire Union server = Unionverse for us as Rpers, is it so hard to understand?

As of my last posting, I was merely pointing out several suggestions with which the Unionverse could deal with said situation without compromising artistic/authorative integrity.

What the entirety of the Union server decides to do with this, however, is completely up to those that actually play on the Union server. Pretty sure this little debate isn't going to derail the entire Union server, though.

Using such a framework for RP will always be a slippery slope in an MMO world, too. So, again - for the shared experience of it all, leave it up to the current GM/GM's of the plotline, and/or put it up for a majority vote.

But our system works just fine so long as we don't cause events that're the biggest atrocities since teh Rikti war though.

Which is what this thread was about, making sure we stick in the limis established so we can hold everything together.

Your suggestions would not work, as the GMs and those invovled in this plot are Unionionverse and are going to go like this happened regardless, if they talk to anyone else (Who you're suggesting simpley ignore this as seperate continuity) then we'd eitehr have to ignore them or say how they're being crazy talking about events that didn't happen.

Whilst valid, the options aren't applicable due to the nature of Unionverse.

No, not all players on Union adhere to the Unionverse structure, but a LOT (if not all) of the vocal people in this thread do, and that is why they are so vocal.

Union will not fall because of this event. Unionverse will have to adjust or retcon. Right now the over-riding vote seems to be for retcon, as the topic and numbers just seem far too beyond reason (and there's the gaping plothole of date as Birdy and I pointed out between us eventually, but that's neither here nor there).

Well.. what a nice thing to find when I finally find a working internet connection. I will try and bring my views and idea's here.

As start I want to say that this sub plot was C his idea and I gave my ok on a killing and mayhem. How big the killing was I had no real idea of.

-OOC-
The complete Open Season plot is very nicely written and a lot of fun. The starting idea was by Big Game to kill off some of his characters he want to kill off / delete.

As of the amound of children... 1000 are to many. I would say that several of these schools are in the city and each would have about 200-300 students. Shadowe his actual death count sounds the best to place there. If that helps people to be able to ignore it.. so be it!

The big problem for some of the players who never wanted to be involved from the start is the feel of being god-modded into action. As the story they where ignoring from day one (even though I warned everyone that this would turn out to become big on forum, PM and Union RP) cannot be ignored anymore. That would still be a prob if it was onl 12 children death as the paladinic hero would not ignore that either.

Villain rp needs to get some slack here.. as so few is done. Without a real villain no hero will have anything to fight. And stories end up dull. So discuss stuff and we can get to some kind of agreement. In this case there is a OOC for it... where you can talk and discuss with CB over it.

-IC-
Elizabeth was already looking for Tomb which would not end well for Tomb. She rubbed her completly the wrong way so to speak. As the event happened already and the robot was actually getting result taking down the Priest she let the attck unfold further. But she was once a mother and attacking children this way is not something she will agree upon. The robot was made by Tomb without Elizabeth her agreement on it.

She went out of the country for a meeting of the vampiric council (as I always do when I go on holiday) so sheis not there. But Tomb made her list for sure... It is just a matter of time.

She expects an attack... even big nuclear ones. She also made sure there are ways to survive this whole thing. If you think you cannot ignore it... and you like to be involved... that is why it is Open Roleplay. Please do!

Ofcourse heroes should hunt Elizabeth to death if they can.. As they should do with every court member. Ofcourse there is a prob with attacking the isles as Arachnos will not allow any heroic super force enter the isles. Even if it is to do something like this. And most of the court are 'almost' impossible to destroy permently.

-End-
I say change some till we are all in agreement and finally be able to play together here. If we are seeying this universe as one... we should be able to discuss it. THe whole Open Season and all around was started with warning to as many rp-ers as possible. This whole topic should be in the OOC part that was made for it. Change the things that people are having probs with and then keep it as being ic. Retconning it will be an insult to all who was involved. Lets respect each others creative input.

I wish Big Game was here to say his idea upon this...

While I've reduced the number...

I'd point out the number was only exaggerated by 150 or so casualties, the pupil numbers are a lot higher in American Big City schools, than most of us Europeans can imagine.