Important Players Meeting 27th April

[Szentasha]

Thank you Kirrana. This is EXTREMELY important. Those in Rubi-Ka who care about roleplay, plot, and context have been at odds with Funcoms approach to this issue, and the lack of support for players who wish to introduce roleplaying to the game.

Over and over I am dissapointed to Funcoms approach. I was at a 'roleplaying' meeting a few days ago run by a GM where very few actual roleplaying was taking place, and it seemed as though he was just setting the scene for some massive battle. That is not roleplaying! This lengthy, unfocused, and uneventfull meeting felt more like roleyawning to me. During the entire meeting, I was tempted to emote "/me opens Funcoms official guide to roleplaying and wonders why pages 6 through 22 are missing." .. but I restrained myself. They are in desperate need of help from the leaders in the roleplaying community, but refuse to engage us.

See you Saturday!

***

I edited this message to remove a personal slander against Meister, although I do feel that his previous message was a thinly veiled threat consistent with recent OmniPol actions of harrassing peaceful non-political multi-faction gatherings in Omni space.

[Andross]

Quite at the contrary. I dont plan to disrupt OOC meetings, but others might want to do it. Reets Retreat would really be the best choice, also for the fact that it is easier to reach for all factions, since it is in neutral territory. In the end, you can have this meeting wherever you want, but should any problems arise due to other people who enjoy to ruin events for others just because they can, dont blame it on Omni.

[Altared]

If you did want a neutral location wouldn't a backyard in Borealis be more sensible....you'd be in the right place for the party too.

I'm trying to rearrange RL to attend this (wherever and whenever).

Alteredstate

[Kithraks]

They won't Meister. Anyone that crashes an ooc RP guild leader accross the board Omni/Neut/Clan would be none too bright. Not to mention what it says about the org from the member that crashes it.

[_____________Kirrana]

Thanks to the people that showed up and had time to give me their views. Its not always easy to hear everyones views in this open floor event so if you want to talk about issues directly then e-mail me or send me an in game tell.


I am trying to bring the ideas together in a report which will form the base of the first council meeting and list of the ideas will also be posted on the boards to get even more feedback on the report.

I know the idea of the council is going to take a lot of work. There are also people out there who seem to think the council is a bad idea and will not work.

I do not claim to have all the answers, or expect the council to solve all the problems. I am a player just like the rest of you, I got unhappy and was about to quit AO but I had the idea of a council. The idea that maybe I could start something to make a difference in AO to make the game better.

Thats all I am trying to do and have asked a number of people who have worked hard in AO to help me on this council. I dont expect FC to treat us any different than other players we are there to try and put your view to FC thats all.

Kirrana
Kirrana@hotmail.com

[Dabblez]

First off I do apologise we had to leave the meeting early. Our org did have a prior engagement and our attempts at rescheduling it were not altogether successful.
Speaking for myself, I guess I am in a minority. After 8 months I find I am enjoying the game and specifically the roleplaying aspect more and more. However I appreciate that whatever affects the roleplaying community, directly or indirectly affects me and the org I am in. As such I support any initiative that will result in more, happy roleplayers.

However I do want to say one thing. I think those who complain about the lack of roleplaying, events, things to do in general are often just as guilty as Funcom about ignoring player events, and I don't mean the tired pool party of massive PvP fest. How many of those at disgruntled players at today's meeting did not bother checking out Mjolnir's Festival of Performing Arts? How many missed our Leet Fight? These are just two of most of the most recent, high quality player events. They were advertised in plenty of time on the Funcom message board, AO Basher and Stratics. I am not saying these events take FunCom off the hook, I do think that the first step to make the game more fun and varied should be to make the most of what week in week out is already happening. I do hope the new Player Event Calendar, on the official site will help this process of communicating events, but it is only going to work he players check it regularly and take a chance and actually turn up at these events.

Right, that is more than enough from me :-)

[___________Pale Fire]

It appears that FC hasn't done a great deal to make this the game they promised it would be a year ago. I left last September because of the technical problems. Those appear to be mostly fixed but they apparently have done little or not enough to support the story they promised. I came back hoping that the story would be here. Oh well.

[Bionitrous]

Festival of Performing Arts and Leet Fight are not the Story. They are events and roleplaying. The story involves Phillip Ross, Henry Radiman, Clones, Cyborgs, ICC, Sol Banking Corp, Dust Brigade, etc.

I applaud those who keep up the roleplaying and create/run events to entertain themselves and others. It's a fine thing they are doing. There's plenty of roleplaying happening on Rubi'Ka right now.

That's not what people are complaining about. They are complaining about the lack of Storyline.

[Szentasha]

This is an issue very close to my heart. As someone who has been making every effort to run quality player events, I am dismayed at Funcom's lack of support for us.

My sense of what would-be roleplayers want is a real roleplaying environment that allows their actions to have greater purpose. They do not see the impact of their actions or interactions on the world around them, or the conflict as a whole. Those who thought that the 'story' would bring this will continue to be dissapointed. The 'story' operates at too high a level to engage most players, and really only provides an opportunity for the next large-scale battle. On the other side of things are the player run events. These events are small in scale, and usually have a strong social element. Examples are the performing arts festival, and the fashion show hosted by my guild. These are fun social events, but don't form a very good context for roleplaying -- there is no real plot or storyline to follow. What is sorely missing is something in between -- small roleplaying events that have a story and impact the greater world around us. To her credit, Savoy's leet fighting event had elements of a story, and something that can continue to grow into something more complex .. but it is still bound by the limitations of other events imposed on it by Funcom.

What we have here are two parties with distinct advantages and limitations to solving this problem. Funcom has control over the world, and with it the ability to make real changes happen as the result of players interacting withing the context of 'the story'. But their resources are focused on solving technical problems, and they probably feel that the roleplaying community is such a minority that their efforts are better spent elsewhere. Also, from what I can tell, they don't really know how to run a roleplaying event. Or maybe its just a job, and they lack passion for it -- I don't know. The other party are those of us that are running player events. We are successfull at organizing events, engaging other players, and probably have the experience of running roleplaying games outside of AO. But ultimately we recognize the fact that there are limits to what we can accomplish without Funcom's help. Our stories will never have an impact on 'the story', and that there is a severe lack of support from Funcom in terms of providing us the tools to run really good roleplaying events.

I feel that a player's council that bridges this gap is the only way to solve the problem, but it is going to require Funcom's cooperation to make it happen. I sincerely hope that Kirrana is succesfull in organizing this council and getting Funcom's attention. Good luck Kirrana.

[_______________Snowy]

Has anyone posted a log of this meeting yet on any of their sites? I would like to take a look at the part that I missed.

I am also interested in finding out what the planned next step is.

[Bionitrous]

Very nice post Szentisha. You echo my sentiments exactly. As full of vitriol as my taunts at FunCom with respect to their complete and utter shutdown of the story are, I equally respect the events that players create such as those you mention. They often have better backstories and are more organized than anything FunCom itself is able to pull off.

What we are missing is 'legitemacy'. Without sanctioning, I and many others cannot give creedence to many of the claims that certain (mostly RP-wannabe) groups claim to be or have done. There's actually some guild out there that claims to be super-human genetic mutations with super powers.

Now, if FunCom puts it in their timeline that some group of people all of a sudden developed 'spidey sense' and actually gave one-of-a-kind nano crystals to the people in this guild, then we'd have Storyline. We'd have 'legitemacy'. Anything less than this and it's only roleplaying. Roleplaying in this respect is basically up to those who tell the story and those who listen to it as to whether or not they want to subscribe to it. Obviously the guild of superheroes believes what they write about themselves and the majority of others make up their own minds.

It's up to FunCom to:

a.) Put their stamp of approval on happenings and sub-plots that players have had a hand in creating.

and most importantly

b.) Create some real changes on the planet in an effort to forward the story that has been gathering dust on somebody's desk in North Carolina or Norway.

The latter is self-explanatory and the current state is inexcusable. The fact that we know nothing further about the Dust Brigade, the Cloning Vats, the political state of the Mantises, Cyborgs, Ross and Radiman's negotiations, etc. is a a farce. The storyline people should be ashamed. End of that story.

Now the former is what this particular thread is all about. In the absence of the main storyline, FunCom can help the rest of us to 'believe' what these players are coming up with. If this 'council' were provided some official legitemacy by FunCom; if they were able to submit events and sub-plots to FunCom for approval; if Ross or Radiman were actually to make a showing at one of their 'made up' holidays, then I and others would not be so eager to simply dismiss these happenings as the futile efforts of well-intentioned RP'ers to breath life into a dieing carcass.

Just as Star Wars fanatics lend no creedence to fan fiction written by amatures unless George's boys put their logo on it, many of us can't accept that the story is being written by players unless it gets the official stamp of approval. It may be artistic and well executed and fully enjoyable, maybe better than the 'real thing'. But, without sanctioning it's just another 'player-run event'.

What I want are official storyline elements to be run in-game. I don't care if they are run by FunCom or sanctioned events run in cooperation with paying players. If FunCom needs to expand the ranks of the ARK's to include a new division of players devoted solely to maintaining continuity in and success of player run events then so be it. An arrest at a pajama party doens't mean much to a lot of people until they hear a 'green name' was involved. I put little value in that happening until I heard that their were 'official' FunCom employees overseeing what went on.

Perhaps we need a new level of 'semi-official' ARK-players who are willing to pick up the slack where FunCom has left off. Honestly, if FunCom's storyline involves Phillip Ross making a statement that the Clone Labs appear to be a result of insurgent elements at the top of BOTH the CoT and O-T, then if FunCom is too lazy or unwilling to perform this simple speech, then why not allow a player to script the speech and send it FunCom for approval prior to letting this player walk out the P. Ross character and deliver it.

And on a final note, these things should not be accredited 'after the fact'. I'm tired of seeing someone announce an 'event' or even an alteration to the official Rubi'Ka calendar on a message board and then later having it encorporated as 'official' almost as an afterthought. For this to be done properly, there must be a communication channel whereby someone who wishes to propose a new legal holiday, for example, submit their idea and implementation plan to FunCom for approval and the two parties work together to bring the idea to successful fruition.

This whole idea of letting the players do their thing and later deciding if it was good enough to make the official story site has got to go. Many of us need to know in advance what is 'real'.

[Praecautus]

i posted the log of the entire meeting on the neutral forum run by rypht

http://pub64.ezboard.com/bneutralsofrubika

in the section on post meeting logs and discussions.

[Dabblez]

Bionitrous,

"What we are missing is 'legitemacy'. Without sanctioning, I and many others cannot give creedence to many of the claims that certain (mostly RP-wannabe) groups claim to be or have done. There's actually some guild out there that claims to be super-human genetic mutations with super powers."

And I say, if you forgive the pun, more power to them! I am guessing they don't need our credence to enjoy themselves, and in the end, is there any other measure of success?

We only need FC to legitimise events if you are aiming for one monolithic roleplaying community, all marching to the same tune. I submit that is neither practical nor desirable. Not practical because there are simple too many of us; not desirable because even among roleplayers there are vast stylistic differences. Some may choose to play Omni-Tek as the good guys, other might view AO as a dark comedy (Paranoia anyone?).

Table top GMs have always tweaked official campaign settings to suit their tastes. All they need to legitimise these changes is consensus within their roleplaying group. Likewise in AO all the legitimacy you should really need is within your gaming group, be it an org, group of orgs or just a bunch of friends. If within your group it is agreed that Ross is really your father and Eleena is your long lost sister, why should anyone stop you? Common sense dictates you should not push this idea outside of your group, good taste demands you go for a more original story, but in the end it is nobody's business but your own.

With the WLFF leet fight events, despite them being totally unofficial player fabrications, we did try to involve the general player base, and as such I suppose we are guilty of seeking some sort of validation of this concept outside our player group. But it was just a bit of fun and unlikely to threaten anyone's storyline. Official sanction would have boosted the ratings no doubt, but in seeking official sanction we would exposed ourselves to official rejection which would have totally discredited these events. So you see it is actually in the existing grey area that our creative freedom is best preserved.

[Bionitrous]

Savoy,

I respectfully disagree, but, with qualification. I signed on to AO to be part of a Story that was to be told by a master storyteller with 'The Longest Journey' as the shining jewel in his resume. All the 'little' things that players come up with are ancilliary to watching the history of the planet unfold. Embellishments to the backdrop so to speak.

I was excited to be living in the middle of a Science Fiction novel chronicalling 4 years of history on a deep space planet 20 or so centuries after civilization rebuilds itself after self-destruction. A beauty pageant or wolf-race across the planet has little part in this particular facet of what I and many others expected out of the storyline. Once again, role-playing (other than that done by those behind P. Ross, Radiman, etc.) has little impact on the story I expected to unfold around me.

I agree that if my circle of friends agreed that I was the long lost heir to Ronald McDonald (or more accurately Ray Kroc) and that my genetic makeup had me inherently attuned to the needs of fast food and as a result the head of Mongul Meat (BB's biggest competitor), that, in isolation, I AM in fact the head of Mongul Meat. I and my friends could have a blast and perhaps enjoy ourselves so much more than FunCom could entertain us even if they were firing on all eight cylinders. However, in the grand scheme of things my Meat Mogul status has NO impact on Ragnar's story. And it's that story that I'm interested in and thought I was paying for.

Somebody could slip a handwritten chapter into the middle of a Ray Bradbury novel and it could end up being a nice addition to as easily as it could be a total distraction from the author's work. It's once again up to me to decide if I encorporate the 'unauthorized' addition. However, what is sorely missing in AO is everything that's supposed to be wrapped around that hand-written chapter. We brought the cover home with us when we bought the box. We got the epilogue with the animated series and a few in-game additions, modifications, and events. We even have the obligitory Chapter One flashback with the novel.

We want the rest and we want it soon. Many such as I can only handle so many hand-written chapters before totally dismissing everything. I applaud all the efforts to 'help' FunCom. I read the transcript of the meeting and could feel genuine pain at what FunCom is doing (or not) and sensed honesty in certain player's desire to assist an obviously (harsh but I have to say it) clueless Storyline continuity team.

Snarf claiming to Mayor of Tir (I know is was in jest) doesn't make it true even if everybody in his guild agrees that it is so. FunCom saying that Snarf is Mayor of Tir makes it so.