ti-legacy.com

This isn't meant to argue, but rather just to give my view point of the whole scenario.


Let me preface this with:

When I created Julea, I didn't set out to either play a bad guy, or a good guy. I just created a personality, full of all sorts of grey areas. With some bad traits and a lot of good ones too. She had flaws. She made mistakes. And I, the player of Julea purposefully guided her into them, for character development and to tell a story. I made her with the goal of instigating roleplay. To stir things up a bit and to hopefully challenge people's perceptions of characters as simply black and white. A lot of time went into her design, personality, background, plots, daily rp, and even future plots. I had so much awesomeness planned out that I'm sad will never see the light of day. I often prepared stuff for the next day of play, trying to predict how people might react. And if I was really lucky, they surprised me. Nothing better than that! This is just always how I've played, and typically how others around me do.

To clarify: I fully understood the non-censual, perm-death setting. I've played the former almost my entire roleplaying life in worlds which push a lot more limits than TI. However, the pace, style and even OOC elements were so different from anything I've experienced before. As well, I admit that I've not been purely a player for a long time. I made many decisions for Julea more based on 'what is best for the game/story/plot' and am used to an environment where others do similar, than necessarily 'what is going to keep Julea alive'. I am also used to game world where death is just one of many options to get revenge/justice/etc, with other, (sometimes more vicious!) creative options more commonly sort.

On 'the scene':

If Julea had died a death that hadn't been fraught with OOC complications (I don't think I need to get into them here, they're well detailed above) and I was made to feel more comfortable with it, then I would of been more accepting of her death. I would of been upset, like any player losing a favourite character. But I wouldn't be quitting.

I do disagree that it would of been likely that the same results would of happened regardless of the OOC complications. I think there would of been about a 50:50 chance roughly. I had ideas of things that that might of seen her dashing off into the sunset.

If the OOC circumstances hadn't of played out like they did, I wouldn't of osay'd my intentions to lose link and then do so. If any of the people there had said, hey, what's wrong, what can we do to help so you can keep playing this through, that too would of done the world of good. As well, the lack of response to the osays and messages I was sending to people asking for help and trying to explain didn't help either.

I admit that I probably didn't communicate things properly. I tried, and got little response and I'm not normally one to shout out till she's heard.

Why I don't feel able to play:

I think, my style of play, unfortunately and the game perhaps do not mesh. Any character I create would have a short life span (by the very nature of how I game) and I like to play characters that develop over time, tell an ever evolving story and build a history.

I still feel really bad about that whole scene. It had me in tears for several nights/days on and off. I know I have been offered xp, and the chance to play a special character (which I appreciate the offer of), but to be honest, it isn't about that for me.

I do not know if I could seperate the IC and the OOC after it all and how I feel. This one is a biggie for me. I would hate to step on other people's rp in this way. And usual way I tend to deal with this is matching the issues with the character's personality/goals/background. For example. When I started playing I knew myself as a player wasn't going to know my way around, so I made sure that IC circumstances matched that by creating a character also new to Lithmore. Now, unless the staff want to allow me to play an assassin sent out by the Red Claw to investigate and avenge his daughter's death.. *flutters lashes* ... but I somehow doubt that would be okay.

As mentioned previously on my blog. I won't say 100% I won't be playing again, but given my last break from RP.. and knowing myself all too damn well and how I deal with things I have difficulties with, I would say it's not likely. At least, well, looking at the past.. I'd give it a good 12-18 months ;)

Finally: a big thank you to the staff of The Inquisition and the players that make such a wonderful community. I've made some amazing new friends and unexpectedly found a few old ones too. It was my first 'real' experience as a player for a long time, I've been on the admin side of things for way, way too long and it was nice to just be a player.

If you want specific ideas about a new command (Pause or anything else) it might be a good idea to move to a new thread. Some people aren't going to read this thread (for various reasons, due to the nature of it and the title) so won't see it otherwise. It's also going to get lost in whatever else is going on here, although now it seems all parties have had something to say and everything has been said.

Pause - sounds like a great idea. Not sure what can be done when a staffer isn't available and somebody wants to pause, though?

Re: Julea - I just want to say I didn't step in when you said you OOCly wanted to drop link because I figured that was an absolute last resort thing, that you wouldn't be doing so unless you had zero ability/desire to finish playing out the scene. As such, it would have seemed intrusive and wrong to be like "but why don't you just stay around"?

Communication errors happened - please don't think people didn't care.

I'd just like to make a few brief comments on the baddies vs law issue.

Consider, as lawful folks, do you appreciate that there are people to play the baddies? Villains for you to catch? I would never ask you to ignore them, to turn a blind eye to actual evidence, but I would ask you to respect the role that they play. Because they are willing to play a role which results in their inevitable death, because they actually do things which can be RPed about and responded to, you get a more enriched experience here. And in the time you have had one long, lasting character, they may go through half a dozen. That's a lot to ask of them, but we do, because we want the law to be on top themewise, and we want to have bad guys to get.

The mage who was recently exposed after so long passing as completely normal, were they adding to your daily excitement in the same way Remi and Julea were? It's no less valid a character to fly under the radar, but those people who are out there, making waves, they risk themselves more and they fall hard and often. And that's hard to get back up from.

Appreciate those who enrich your RP. Let them know how much you love that they are there. Make it desirable to play those roles. Not ICly desirable, but OOCly. Don't ignore their IC flubs and suspiciousness. Chase them! But give them some slack OOCly. It shouldn't be a game of 'what can I OOCly do to mask my identity?' Give them the respect of considering why you know they are a mage/baddie. Is it things they have done entirely ICly, or is it because they were on the who list everytime something happened? Even if you have IC reasons, consider if they would be enough for your character to believe that they are guilty if you didn't also OOCly know that they were online and not on whererp.

As someone who saw Remi both in his public role and his covert one, he made a lot of pointed IC choices to account for those things that baddies do to slip up. He didn't carry the suspicious items, he used different speech styles, etc. But in the end, that wasn't enough. It is impossible to be a smart enough bad guy to last forever unless you are simply not doing the drawing the law folks into baddie RP. Should he have been cut more slack, was it motivated by OOC knowledge and certainty, and so on? It's probably more viewpoints and perspective than anyone doing anything wrong.

Much like this situation with Julea as well. Did the good guys do anything wrong, especially on purpose? Besides completely spacing the desc notes, I'm sure that they meant well. But in both of those situations, the players of those characters lost are left with a bad taste in their mouth. After these deaths, they aren't back playing another baddie for us to have fun with again. We want to make it as good an experience as possible. This wasn't. The staff will be doing our part to enforce our standards, but we want you guys as well to respect those who go out on a limb with this. Remarking that 'You decided to play a bad guy, you knew you were going to get this.' is not helpful. Making their death as epic as possible and letting them OOCly know that you really appreciate them creating a character like that, that is good.

So everyone, thank your favorite villain. And when you honor them with a city-wide manhunt and freaking out because they might get away, try not to let that respect get lost in the smackdown.

Thanks, Temi. I've been staying out of this, but I have to comment that I agree with what you said, regardless of the situation at stake.

Temi,

Sure. I like having villains to chase, but there are definitely some that I don't like. We don't have track, we don't have an evidence system, to date we rarely if ever get helpful info from npc witnesses and on this incarnation I've yet to see scraps of evidence left behind. Granted, this is not present day times, we aren't going to be able to fingerprint, get DNA, etc, but it would be nice if we were given some 'slack' too. I guess criminals on TI don't bleed when they get cut and leave a trail, or a have hair fall out from time to time.

It's pretty rare when a 'hunt' goes successfully, it's really more often that we have to do a guessing game and then corner the person with surprise. 9/10 if a person is outed, they either stay gone, come back after a reasonable time with a new identity, or come back for one final rampage. So, yeah.

Do I appreciate that bad guy are on the game and choose to make bad guys? Yeah of course I do, and I agree OOC information should not be used. I personally have more faith in our pbase to not use whoinvis as a way to ferret out people. If the people who ultimately determine the baddies' final fate don't have good IC reasons supporting their decision, then maybe PKs should be reversed.

But I stand by my original statement, I may appreciate that villains play villains but that doesn't mean I'm going to intentionally have my character ignore relevant data as it comes to him.

Just gunna chime in that this isn't supposed to just be about ROK hunting the villains. It's supposed to be a two way street, with both mages/thieves and Knights being dangerous to play. It doesn't seem to work like that anymore though.

And for the record, it's the Order that are the bad guys, not the mages. :)

Yes, I want to send my greatest thanks to all the baddies. As a former lawful GL, you make things awesome for me. As a current semi-lawful, you make things awesome for me. So, a toast to the baddies. I really appreciate the great RP you create.

Cheers!

Also, for the record, the mages are totally the bad guys. Order is holy, holier than thou, even.

Pff, mages are totally the good guys.

Freedom fighters out to overthrow a genocidal autocracy? Definitely the good guys.

Besides, it's a well-known fact that Dav himself was a mage. If Dav was alive today the Order would burn him!