Six months is way too excessive, that's not a trial that's just a decision. I see this as just another attempt to solve a player problem with code, which never really works as we've seen a bunch of time in the past. 3 months would be pushing it a bit, 1 month would be fine. It's just going to push people into other OOC means to communicate stuff for quality of life, such as Discord - you may as well ban Discord at this point if we're going hard to stamp out any form of OOC communication.
If someone does not wish to receive tells or listen to guild chats, they are fully able to deafen themselves and not receive them if it bothers them that much. I understand the reasons for this decision, I just don't think it's going to do anything to solve it, it's just going to deepen peoples reliance on other means of communication outside the game which just encourages cliques. Anyone who is abusing tells and channels, this isn't going to deter them or change their habits, it's just punishing everyone else.
I don't see what the big deal is sending someone a quick tell to see if they're available for RP, or how long they might have to RP. You get an answer, then you send a messenger and work it out IC'ly. Rather than wasting time by seeing them on the who-list, send a messenger... wait 30 minutes for a response, and then you might not get a response. 30 minutes wasted that you could've been doing something else. It's not abusing the system, it's just quality of life. Or, we're just going to have to resort to Pboards to set up times to scene, which is fairly cumbersome.
Specifically for the Order, I very much enjoy the channel, it adds a much needed sense of OOC camaraderie which helps loads when you're doing a demanding IC role. It's a good support network when things get rough.
Another note, the Jail channel is also being removed? That's just further going to isolate prisoners and make it worse for them.
And what happens to all the alerts various channels get, such as Order alerts when magic gets spotted? And so forth.
Trial removal of some OOC Channels
Definitely no illusions there - folks who want to have OOC relationships with each other will continue to do so, and that's fine!
There seems to be a misconception here that Staff's goal is to cut off all means of OOC communication between players, period. That'd be an impossible goal even if was what we were after, but it's not. People who are set on having OOC relationships are going to have them. That's just kind of the nature of the beast. Removing tells and group-based OOC channels (guild) has nothing to do with saying no one should talk to each other OOC ever. We're keeping Discord, the global OOC channel, and osay (edit: and visnet). If "never ever talk to people OOC" was our goal, all of those would be pretty counterproductive to it.
In my view, it's much less about somehow stopping any OOC communication from going on and more about stopping OOC from being the standard, go-to method of getting involved in RP. We're a game that leans closer to an RPI than other labels, but we've slowly dug deeper and deeper into an atmosphere where those who use the IC tools at their disposal and choose to block OOC methods are excluded from the majority of roleplay. The community norm we want isn't "send a tell to get RP." I wince using the term, but that being the standard does tend to punish the folks who play the game without OOC participation.
There's definitely games that do both methods super well - dozens of successful MUSHes have been about only OOC pre-planning, dozens of RPIs have been about zero OOC-preplanning. There's nothing really wrong with either option, a game just has to make a choice at some point which type it wants to make the norm. TI's always been on kind of a middle-ground. Tipping deeper into "be available for OOC contact or you don't get RP" just isn't the direction we're keen to keep going in.
On guild channels specifically: A hardcoded OOC channel for an exclusive group of players isn't generally a great community builder. I love the banter to bits, I just think it'd be better situated on the global OOC channel where everyone can participate in the fun and camaraderie. Beyond that, the OOC organization of RP over those channels runs into a lot of the same issues as using tells for those purposes - by nature of being exclusive, it tends to be exclusionary.
Some clear-ups for sanity purposes: Jail channel is staying untouched, guildchannel alerts are staying. The guild channels won't be chattable (not a word...?), but they'll retain all their alerts and notifications for guildmembers.
Annnd this post became about 10x as long as I intended. Goes without saying we're expecting a buttload of tweaks to be necessary throughout the trial period. Messenger costs, for example - somebody cited that earlier on. If they're going to get a huge uptick in use, their use will likely need to be easier. The switch-over to less OOC hasn't happened yet, but when it does please, please provide feedback on the experience. If something is unlivable, we'd like to know about it so it can be examined and fixed.
Tldr: If it's the worst thing ever and sucks it's not going to be forever. No stress. Just asking that we be open to giving it a shot.
There seems to be a misconception here that Staff's goal is to cut off all means of OOC communication between players, period. That'd be an impossible goal even if was what we were after, but it's not. People who are set on having OOC relationships are going to have them. That's just kind of the nature of the beast. Removing tells and group-based OOC channels (guild) has nothing to do with saying no one should talk to each other OOC ever. We're keeping Discord, the global OOC channel, and osay (edit: and visnet). If "never ever talk to people OOC" was our goal, all of those would be pretty counterproductive to it.
In my view, it's much less about somehow stopping any OOC communication from going on and more about stopping OOC from being the standard, go-to method of getting involved in RP. We're a game that leans closer to an RPI than other labels, but we've slowly dug deeper and deeper into an atmosphere where those who use the IC tools at their disposal and choose to block OOC methods are excluded from the majority of roleplay. The community norm we want isn't "send a tell to get RP." I wince using the term, but that being the standard does tend to punish the folks who play the game without OOC participation.
There's definitely games that do both methods super well - dozens of successful MUSHes have been about only OOC pre-planning, dozens of RPIs have been about zero OOC-preplanning. There's nothing really wrong with either option, a game just has to make a choice at some point which type it wants to make the norm. TI's always been on kind of a middle-ground. Tipping deeper into "be available for OOC contact or you don't get RP" just isn't the direction we're keen to keep going in.
On guild channels specifically: A hardcoded OOC channel for an exclusive group of players isn't generally a great community builder. I love the banter to bits, I just think it'd be better situated on the global OOC channel where everyone can participate in the fun and camaraderie. Beyond that, the OOC organization of RP over those channels runs into a lot of the same issues as using tells for those purposes - by nature of being exclusive, it tends to be exclusionary.
Some clear-ups for sanity purposes: Jail channel is staying untouched, guildchannel alerts are staying. The guild channels won't be chattable (not a word...?), but they'll retain all their alerts and notifications for guildmembers.
Annnd this post became about 10x as long as I intended. Goes without saying we're expecting a buttload of tweaks to be necessary throughout the trial period. Messenger costs, for example - somebody cited that earlier on. If they're going to get a huge uptick in use, their use will likely need to be easier. The switch-over to less OOC hasn't happened yet, but when it does please, please provide feedback on the experience. If something is unlivable, we'd like to know about it so it can be examined and fixed.
Tldr: If it's the worst thing ever and sucks it's not going to be forever. No stress. Just asking that we be open to giving it a shot.
Tasker and Kuzco already mentioned messengers and I wanted to chime in with my own concern about that. Oftentimes I think pinging someone via tell was being oft used as a workaround to the cost and convenience issues of messengers, which while understandable, sometimes feel straight-up unrealistic. (I can't count how many times people have outrun their own messengers to me - it's practically a recurring gag!)
I adore the messenger system as an IC form of communication (It's my preferred means of contact!) so I hope a solution can be found to balance the immersion of using it with its..well, usability.
I adore the messenger system as an IC form of communication (It's my preferred means of contact!) so I hope a solution can be found to balance the immersion of using it with its..well, usability.
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LonelyNeptune
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In my experience guild channels were barely used, and OOC communication as a go-to hasn't been raised as a problem to the community at all, so seeing this change is really odd. The removal of OOC channels probably won't solve the problem that is suggested. It will, however, make the game slightly more annoying to play.
More concerning than the actual removal is the way that this change has been introduced. This follows a pattern of previous changes which were abrupt, non-negotiable, and left a lot of people feeling like leadership was unwilling to consider player feedback. Six months, really? And that's alongside coded language implying that the playerbase are too over-emotional and biased to decide whether they want this change. It's six months because the playerbase won't give the response you want if you put a poll up right now asking if they want OOC channels removed.
After needing to raise hell just to not have all the Physician's ranks deleted by Az for no reason, this sort of thing is getting old.
More concerning than the actual removal is the way that this change has been introduced. This follows a pattern of previous changes which were abrupt, non-negotiable, and left a lot of people feeling like leadership was unwilling to consider player feedback. Six months, really? And that's alongside coded language implying that the playerbase are too over-emotional and biased to decide whether they want this change. It's six months because the playerbase won't give the response you want if you put a poll up right now asking if they want OOC channels removed.
After needing to raise hell just to not have all the Physician's ranks deleted by Az for no reason, this sort of thing is getting old.
I admit we Troubs over relied in the guild channel beyond playful banter, and I used tells to organise scenes a little too much.
I do miss having tell conversations, but to be honest, TI is not a chat platform. There are other avenues for that.
I agree that this was a bit abrupt and felt strong armed. Reminds me of the elimination of dual guilding.
I do miss having tell conversations, but to be honest, TI is not a chat platform. There are other avenues for that.
I agree that this was a bit abrupt and felt strong armed. Reminds me of the elimination of dual guilding.
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