Recent issue with chat and emoting

[Demson]

A new member recently appeared on this server. There seems to be a conflict with his manner of typing. He uses plain text to narrate and " " to distinguish his in-character speak.

We had noticed this on the OAS2 but did not express our concern over this. I have often used that style in the past, and I was impressed with the way he made it work. I hadn't anticipated it causing a problem for residents on the OAS2.

Unfortunately it seems it has. The applicant has explained to me that a number of residents have stated their disapproval of his style. They are persistant in this. I can imagine how obstructing this must be to the roleplay, and secondly the newcomer is very irritated with it.

Personally, I can understand it that when someone narrates in a format you are used to as being IC speak, it becomes confusing. As it is however, the newcomer does not feel inclined to change his ways, or italicise his narration at least.

So here there lies a conflict of interests. I expect neither party will try to accomodate each other. I can't understand why italicing text is too much effort, and I don't see how the format of text can be as problematic as to make an applicant feel irritated with all the corrections he gets.

Consider the stubborn nature of the people involved, I feel that this will not end well. Which is a damn shame.

Still, I'd like to ask all people involved to be considerate of each other and try to accomodate one another. It's difficult to settle such matters in-game, therefor I'd like to offer you this topic to work it out. I hope it can.

I haven't mentioned any names on purpose. I'll let you people decide to stand up and work this out, or not. It all seems very trivial for both sides, and it would be a shame to let this end badly.

[Kest]

I've met the player and can roll with it easily enough, but only hope the practice doesn't spread to other players... it is a bit confusing/jarring at times.

[hollyfant]

1. There are no ALFA rules on this subject that I know of.
2. Players are not tasked with enforcing the rules anyway.

That is all.

[Vendrin]

I asked once when her pc first approached because I was confused. And frankly, I can't see why they can't adjust themselves to the majority of what everyone else does as a measure of consideration to others RP. But if not, fine, they are just going to have to be used to people asking them to change whenever someone they haven't RPed with before sees their format and is confused.

[MasterOfEternity]

Actually, ALFA is the only server that's ever happened on.

-Eternity.

[Dragoness]

I think I know who you are talking about. IMO, it's been the standard on all the servers I've been on to use either asterisks (*) or italics for doing emotes, parentheses (( or double slashes ( // ) for OOC chat and plain text for IC chatter. To use the plain text for anything else other than IC chatter just makes things confusing for everyone. I realize there isn't a rule stating that people must use a certain standard, however common courtesy (and common sense) should tell a person that it would be best to simply use the standard speech practices that everyone else is doing to prevent confusion and/or conflict.

I believe some people even asked if the person in question could use asterisks for emotes and the player refused. I think this would fall under being respectful to other players. If everyone + the DM is confused as to what you're saying is either IC or OOC, then you need to adjust your writing format accordingly.

[Hughes]

I wasn't there and I am not criticizing anyone in particular but I've seen it a few times in my NWN career and find it pretty affected. Like when Madonna speaks with an English accent even though she's from Detroit.

It's pretty implicit that any text appearing above a character's head is something they're saying. By extension, text that's not what they're saying is what needs indicators (asterisks, etc.). To do otherwise seems to just be attention-getting and not in the spirit of making the game fun for others.

On the other hand, who cares.

[Keryn]

Actually, ALFA is the only server that's ever happened on.

-Eternity.

This is not true!

[Twin Axes]

I played with the PC and had no problem comprehending what was emoting and what was conversation. Especially since the RP:ing was quite good.

Conformity isn't always a virtue.

*shrugs*

[danielmn]

I agree with Twin, I find no confusion whatsoever in the aforementioned use of chat text, and had no problem with the players style of conversing and emoting whatsoever. I can see how it would be confusing to newcomers, but fail to see the reason of confusion from elder Alfians, other than they are used to a certain way of doing things and don't like it when others do something different.

*shrugs*

[Mikayla]

When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

How hard is it to conform to the community's standards for communication? No, its not written down in a rule, its just the way things are done here. There is also no ALFA pillar stating we will use the English language, but its what we use, and if you speak Russian to me in game I am not going to understand you and I am going to ask you to chat in English. This is the same kind of thing, just on a smaller scale. Its ALFA custom to use regular text for what you say, and to bracket/asterik/italicize the emotes. I have to wonder about the nature of a person who cannot make that small adjustment to their role-play to be a part of the community. No one is telling anyone how to play their PC, or what to play, or how to act, only agreeing (by implicit custom, instead of express rule) on the method of communication.

This is not a big deal - and for those who make it one, I have to wonder about what is really behind this.

[Burt]

I've encountered MoE in game and while the style was disconcerting for about five minutes, I found his high standard of roleplay quickly made the nuance irrelevant. Carry on, Nephos will eradicate your evil midget regardless.

[mr duncan]

When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

Thanks. I met the person and after the expected "hey, dont just type out your actions without some indicator" and "No No, i just type that way"... i got annoyed enough to abandon any more attempts to communicate with them.


Perhaps my RP is weak because i let a little thing like that throw me off, but it does. I dont mind folks using italics to emote while i still use asterisks because both those methods draw your attention to notice something different about the actions rather than the spoken word.


Certainly not my place to tell the person what to do, I so just left them alone.




J

[JaydeMoon]

This is such a non-issue it's actually amusing.

We're all smart people, I should hope we can figure out someone's style of text use.

[dergon darkhelm]

In Character/Out of Character
All players are expected to remain in character and not to disturb others’ RP with out of character chatter or metagaming comments. If OOC commentary is needed, hold it in tell or DM channels, depending on who needs to be involved. As a last option, use the talk channel but bracket all of the out of character chat with (()) or preface them as "out of character--"


Do let your environment—time, weather, landscape—influence your RP. Do speak to NPCs as you would PCs. Do look upon all items and placeables as RP props and at monsters as targets for persuasion, intimidation or interaction with more than just your weapons. Do fill in your deity field and behave as a follower of that deity, or write in ‘faithless’ so the DM knows you didn’t forget. Do write a description—NOT a biography—in the PC creation screen. Do describe your PC, or at the very least, empty the default text. Do cover brief real world absences with IC explanations. Do show expressions and actions, but not what you may be thinking in emotes, ie *smiles as she pulls a coin from her bag*. Do roleplay to reflect your low charisma and high wisdom. Do set off alternate languages with applicable language tags (<Drow></Drow>). Good roleplay may result in experience points from DMs while poor may result in loss of experience.

Here's a guideline already written up.