Imagination

[alexandra 31]

I don't believe this will be a very popular opinion, but it's something that I think needs to be a addressed within the general role playing community. 

We have all, at some point or another been laughed at for role playing, the first thing that comes into most peoples minds when you say the word role playing is a latex nurse costume. What they don't understand that this community, at it's core is about imagination, and the collaboration of unplanned interactions between characters we have created in our own minds. I believe it's a strong connection, to create a story with another person, that might be on the other side of the world, and I think it's a wonderful and even a unique thing. You could feel a thousand books of all the story's we've partaken in.  

But knowing this, why do you attack people OOC for their character, why do we suppress their creativity just because it's not in line with our own. 

I believe, as we've all been given the gift of a fresh start on this server, we should keep that in mind. There is a person behind the computer, and any kind of imagination should never be put down. 

If you think it's a case of going against cannon lore, then simple don't role play with that person, or ask that person questions in a kind way to see what it is about that character that has drawn them into it so much. Don't instantly put someone down because they are not role playing your exact interpretation of blizzards cannon lore. 

I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts on this subject, it needs to be spoken about I believe. I hope my point came across.   

[Erkor 119]

what is the purpose of this thread

[alexandra 31]

42 minutes ago, Katiecakes said:

I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts on this subject, it needs to be spoken about I believe. I hope my point came across.   

 

[Zalee 9]

To be honest? I totally agree with you. I never understood why someone would approach a person, in starting zone, and throw threats such as "kill yourself" or "you should die for creating such character" and those words are mostly spoken by a person who has nothing in roleplaying addon. I've never been against other people and their creativity, because many times I've managed to contact those people and just befriend. They are not monster for me. They are still people with feelings and will to enjoy what we do enjoy the most - Roleplay. So why approach such person and throw literally stupid threats. You don't even know this person, you don't even know why this person made such character. Maybe for fun? Maybe to specially trigger you?
My character is a blue dragon. I won't hide it, but she is a bit different. However, I already managed to put some people on ignore list for literally annoying me on starting zone. Like... Did I really managed to hurt you by making such character? Why not use whisper and throw stuff there. Why literally spam /say to show how "amazing" person you are for hating dragons. But it also doesn't mean I'm a robot without feelings. I can laugh, because I saw some kind of weird lore "creation"... But it's not making me approach this person and literally throw shit on it, because person managed to put some time and effort into, let's say, TRP and Roleplaying set. It's something I will never understand and hopefully some people will grow up to see others as I do. 

[Soap 7]

People are going to bitch about your character, no matter where you go. That doesn't make it right, but as we are human, we will always find people to disagree with. We cannot ignore the fact that we don't think alike, and with people coming from so many different places, they're bound to butt heads.

But with that said, I really wish drama won't be stirred up. It's what killed Paragon for me, and with the freedom to do as we please, I think people need to remember why we're here. We're here to have fun, so if someone is entertained by playing a 20 foot tall Orc, then let them go right ahead. 

My mindset of the server right now, even if it's down(rip), is that people just want to have fun and be creative. Which I encourage fully. But don't think people won't question what you're doing, if it's something eyecatching or lore-breaking. They're going to either bitch about it, laugh at it or inquire about what the fuck you're doing, or what your character is. And that's how it is, I doubt it's going to change. But I will say this; Remember that we're all here to have fun. Don't judge people by what they find entertaining. 

[Apoapsis 6]

I've almost written a giant post in return. Decided to make a tl;dr.

The people you are trying to reach won't read this or care. They get their kicks from being jerks, reading elaborate internet posts on why we should be nice to each other is not what they do.

The point you're trying to make is also closely connected to age and a part of growing up. A lot of the RP audience is escapist teenagers who are prone to all kinds of behavior. 

Creativity is a matter of taste, respecting the choices of others is fine - but so is ignoring them. As far as I am concerned, I think none of us should suffer for incompetence of other writers. There's no strong connection in the son of Arthas and Jaina - or King of LandXYZ that doesn't exist or a person who keeps making more of the same until they vilify themselves within or out of the community. 

With all of that said, the connection you're trying to single out as defacto reason we shouldn't shun each other is not that common. We all have to shovel through a pile of figurative shit before we come anywhere close to that and sometimes it goes past us. At the moment this thread is wishful thinking. Personally, some will say I am wrong but I doubt I can be convinced otherwise. Roleplay is not just escapism, when you do it for long enough it becomes a writing hobby. Writing is an art and writing is not something everyone can do capably. This is why we shun each other, because of differing tastes and because of different standards.

 

Something I should add is that I don't mind custom lore as long as it is sensible, but what is sensible is entirely subjective. I think Blizzard's lore has never considered the roleplayer,  nor is World of Warcraft developed with roleplay in mind. I think their storytelling has a limit on how expansive it can get and how much detail it can provide. From that point of view, custom lore ahoy for the purpose of fun. It's why we're here after all and being the lore inquisition  (read as Spanish inquisition) is not in my daily agenda.

 

@Zalee I got similiar treatment over something as doing /hug in a starter area. /Ignore and reporting to the staff team is the best thing you can do for yourself. It worked for me.

Edited August 8, 2017 by Apoapsis

[Rogan 158]

What a great post, keep it up!

Edited August 8, 2017 by Rogan

[Montague 4]

The characters that bear the brunt of criticism are targeted for a reason. Poorly written characters that try so hard to be unique that they end up just blending in with the rest of the snowflakes. It's ironic really. Especially seeing that regular characters holding regular faction ties is the uncommon thing nowadays.

 

Funnily enough despite you guys patting each other on your backs and talking about "imagination" the cringe characters of this server were created due the player's lack of it.

[roundabout 3]

4 hours ago, Montague said:

The characters that bear the brunt of criticism are targeted for a reason. Poorly written characters that try so hard to be unique that they end up just blending in with the rest of the snowflakes. It's ironic really. Especially seeing that regular characters holding regular faction ties is the uncommon thing nowadays.

 

Funnily enough despite you guys patting each other on your backs and talking about "imagination" the cringe characters of this server were created due the player's lack of it.

i would rather have a hundred snowflakes than characters like cailan tbqh family. the opposite end of the spectrum is just as bad. not that there's anything wrong with him, he's just, well, too generic.

I think you might have missed the point of the thread, in that, there's not really a reason to be vitriolic towards other players. "patting someone on the back" is miles different than telling them they're a fucking retard. It's harder to educate than it is to just call someone dumb and have a laugh with their friends, and the only way a community stays nice is if the former happens more than the latter. I don't really understand the obsession with belittling other players for their conduct. It's fairly unhealthy.

Edited August 8, 2017 by roundabout

[Witch 140]

I think a valuable lesson to keep in mind here is that we are on the Internet where opinions are often uncensored and indelicate.

Take a leaf out of retail. We should strive to be a polite community because that is how we would want to reflect on Epsilon, but it is not something that needs policing. If you are offended or upset and a resolution cannot be reached, we have the ignore function. If it escalates beyond that we have a staff team and a report function.

[roundabout 3]

Definitely. I honestly try to avoid creating conflict, even where I know I want to. We're all here and we've got to make the most of it, otherwise we'll only be remembered as the worst kind of folk. Elitism and echo chambers of anger only create a divide.

[Dove 27]

13 hours ago, Montague said:

The characters that bear the brunt of criticism are targeted for a reason. Poorly written characters that try so hard to be unique that they end up just blending in with the rest of the snowflakes. It's ironic really. Especially seeing that regular characters holding regular faction ties is the uncommon thing nowadays.

 

Funnily enough despite you guys patting each other on your backs and talking about "imagination" the cringe characters of this server were created due the player's lack of it.

besides gossiping about and belittling other characters you and your supposed lil' clique dont agree with, i also bet your group motto is "on fridays we wear pink!"

fits high school groups pretty well.

[mig 8]

14 hours ago, Montague said:

The characters that bear the brunt of criticism are targeted for a reason. Poorly written characters that try so hard to be unique that they end up just blending in with the rest of the snowflakes. It's ironic really. Especially seeing that regular characters holding regular faction ties is the uncommon thing nowadays.

 

Funnily enough despite you guys patting each other on your backs and talking about "imagination" the cringe characters of this server were created due the player's lack of it.

Criticism should be encouraged, not shoved in someone's face. I try to endorse a critical approach to writing in roleplay, but I don't believe in accomplishing it through lambasting someone's character. Regardless of how flawed the character is, unsolicited commentary is generally annoying. 

If we are going to try to strive for a more creative approach, we should really start retiring the terms 'snowflake' and 'cringe.' Both are as equally banal as the things they are describing.

Edited August 9, 2017 by migs1014

[Rogan 158]

4 hours ago, Dove said:

besides gossiping about and belittling other characters you and your supposed lil' clique dont agree with, i also bet your group motto is "on fridays we wear pink!"

fits high school groups pretty well.

actually we don't wear pink at all we wear salmon check your privilege bitch

---

If you really want to tell people what to do; take all of yourselves and go into the Epsilon discord and try write a guide to RP, based off your personal experiences and how you feel the proper etiquette and mannerisms should be. It's not morally wrong to take on a teaching role if you feel it's needed.

[Romeo 320]

spend enough time on wow roleplaying servers and you realize it's got a lot of frightening similarities to real life, a constant search for attention, people trying their best to increase their egos, bullying the different and little groups forming whether you like it or not etc, but what the fuck isn't that pathethic

 

if you aren't logging in to have fun then why the fuck you logging in the first place? respect people, laugh, have fun, talk to people, then log out. anyone who doesn't follow this simple way of behaving probably logs on to argue about world of warcraft lore or whether or not plate is flexible or not. and trust me, there's people that do that.

[Mordred 183]

On 8/8/2017 at 0:56 AM, Katiecakes said:

I don't believe this will be a very popular opinion, but it's something that I think needs to be a addressed within the general role playing community. 

It isn't, but not because it's inherently bad. This is something that is brought up in most every server, sometimes more than once in a variety of ways by an equal variety of people. It does have to be addressed, because it is never brought up without reason. The reason it is an unpopular opinion is because of the responses you already see in this thread.

 

I'll still give my two cents, though.

On 8/8/2017 at 0:56 AM, Katiecakes said:

We have all, at some point or another been laughed at for role playing

We all started somewhere, but eventually most of us seem to forget this and associate our "years of experience" with permission to look down on others for attempting to express their creativity. This is commonly called elitism, but it's really mock-elitism. You cannot call yourself an elitist if you insult people instead of teaching them to conform under your view of "superior" roleplay, no matter how right or wrong it may be.

 

This is another topic of discussion though; many "elitists" are as terrible as the people they insult.

 

On 8/8/2017 at 0:56 AM, Katiecakes said:

What they don't understand that this community, at it's core is about imagination, and the collaboration of unplanned interactions between characters we have created in our own minds. I believe it's a strong connection, to create a story with another person, that might be on the other side of the world, and I think it's a wonderful and even a unique thing. You could feel a thousand books of all the story's we've partaken in.  

Every roleplaying community at its core is about imagination and creativity between multiple characters. It is a strong connection indeed, because you are essentially writing a story that then intertwines with another, effectively creating a more robust tale . . . or at least, that's what it's supposed to be like.

 

On 8/8/2017 at 0:56 AM, Katiecakes said:

But knowing this, why do you attack people OOC for their character, why do we suppress their creativity just because it's not in line with our own. 

They suppress creativity because they do not believe it intertwines with their own standard of roleplay. There are some genuinely bad characters and concepts, but even those do not deserve the harshness they receive. Any person, novice roleplayer or no, should be spoken to with the respect you want in return. We are so blinded by this stigma of being a "veteran" roleplayer that we find excuses to berate instead of reassure and educate those less adept at storytelling.

 

On 8/8/2017 at 0:56 AM, Katiecakes said:

I believe, as we've all been given the gift of a fresh start on this server, we should keep that in mind. There is a person behind the computer, and any kind of imagination should never be put down. 

This should not only apply to OOC roleplay encounters, but when speaking to others outside of the game on the Discord, the startzone and announce. Is common courtesy and decency so difficult to express? We can't possibly still be inhabiting an elementary school mentality.

Every character here is controlled by people of all walks of life and unfortunately this is - so it appears to be - widely forgotten if not just discarded entirely.

 

On 8/8/2017 at 0:56 AM, Katiecakes said:

If you think it's a case of going against cannon lore, then simple don't role play with that person, or ask that person questions in a kind way to see what it is about that character that has drawn them into it so much. Don't instantly put someone down because they are not role playing your exact interpretation of blizzards cannon lore. 

Exactly, Ill reiterate what I said just above: educate them, don't berate them. There are some people who join roleplay servers having either not touched WoW roleplay and its story before, or have taken a break so long they are not up to date with canon sources.

 

Some players here are still learning about the new information and changes in Chronicles and other books such as Traveler.

 

Offer patience and kindness and you will get it in return.

Edited August 9, 2017 by Mordred
grammar and some additions

[Traius 41]

if you're a new rper and someone comes up to you in the start zone and calls you out on how retarded your character is you'll be inclined to change it, much more so than trying to just constructively criticize them

 

if you take all criticism, even when its given aggressively, as toxic shittalk then you're bound to stay stagnant. I didn't put spaces after punctuation until a guild leader told me I couldn't join because of it. if I had told him "its my rp I do what I want" then I wouldn't have learned and I would have been, again, stagnant

[Traius 41]

On ‎8‎/‎8‎/‎2017 at 8:57 AM, Montague said:

Funnily enough despite you guys patting each other on your backs and talking about "imagination" the cringe characters of this server were created due the player's lack of it.

 

[roundabout 3]

wow nice buzzwords. i like your little disclaimer at the end there in attempt to prove any arguments against you as being at fault because you're so damn right. what an idiot

[Traius 41]

1 minute ago, roundabout said:

wow nice buzzwords. i like your little disclaimer at the end there in attempt to prove any arguments against you as being at fault because you're so damn right. what an idiot

ok

[roundabout 3]

are you going to change your ways now because i called you an idiot?

[Traius 41]

1 minute ago, roundabout said:

are you going to change your ways now because i called you an idiot?

why

[roundabout 3]

because negative criticism is supposedly more effective, i'm trying it out

[Traius 41]

1 minute ago, roundabout said:

because negative criticism is supposedly more effective, i'm trying it out

the difference is that negative criticism draws on several points seen in a character's biography and calls them into question. you said I used buzzwords and that I am an idiot.

 

if its a retard criticizing you then of course it will be retarded, but throwing away a perfectly valid argument against part of your character because "imagination" "its my rp lol" will only harm your progression as a roleplayer

[SalineSeas 6]

@Katiecakes I'll try keep this as civil as possible, but to clarify now, I disagree with your point in several regards. This post will go point by point, contrasting your original statements with my own views.

 

"We have all, at some point or another been laughed at for role playing, the first thing that comes into most peoples minds when you say the word role playing is a latex nurse costume. What they don't understand that this community, at it's core is about imagination, and the collaboration of unplanned interactions between characters we have created in our own minds. I believe it's a strong connection, to create a story with another person, that might be on the other side of the world, and I think it's a wonderful and even a unique thing. You could feel a thousand books of all the story's we've partaken in."

If I can be honest, I fail to understand the point of this paragraph. To me, you seem to simply be stating the obvious: that interactions between others is a special, and that each interaction is a story in itself. That's great and all, but this is entirely your opinion, if I may be honest. How do I know this? "I believe it's a strong connection" is the dead giveaway. This isn't some sort of critical piece of evidence that would point towards random interaction, regardless of characters, being a good thing, this is just an opinion piece and brings nothing but your own words to the discussion. Now, that'd usually be fine, but you're trying to argue that all RP is good RP, and that people shouldn't be judged so harshly for their choice of RP. In short, personal thoughts don't cut it in this argument, as flowery and positive as they may be, so your opening statement here simply seems unreasonable through a critical lens.

 

"But knowing this, why do you attack people OOC for their character, why do we suppress their creativity just because it's not in line with our own."

I've several points to state here. Firstly, the first part of this segment states "why do you attack people OOC for their character", essentially pointing the blame of all the negativity in RP at other people. Now, this might seem inappropriate of me to point out, but blaming other people for a community-wide issue isn't exactly solving anything. You're just blaming other people for their supposed 'negativity', when what you should be doing is pointing out where they have been toxic, and how they can avoid being toxic in such situations in the future.

Secondly, "why do we suppress their creativity just because it's not in line with our own". Let me state this now: creativity is the essence of roleplaying, and should always be accepted to greater extent. Most characters can't exist without some sort of leniency in regards to lore, as well as certain locations. However, certain players (and their characters) take this beyond reason, creating characters that simply go against the very founding rules of both lore and roleplaying. I won't give specifics here, but I'm fairly sure everyone can remember a character that simply had no solid reason or right to exist within the canon lore of Warcraft. Now, if this is within a phase, it is the responsibility of the phase owner to deal with such characters appropriately. If the character is simply for a custom lore phase, then there's not much you can really complain about since you're highly unlikely to actually come across the character during your own time roleplaying. Of course, if such a character decides to step into a canon-lore phase, and wave themselves around and pretend that people should take them seriously and accept who they are, despite them not belonging, then there would be no surprise if they received heavy flak. But again, phase staff make their rules, and if they fail to act in regards to such characters, then the blame is really on their shoulders.

 

"I believe, as we've all been given the gift of a fresh start on this server, we should keep that in mind. There is a person behind the computer, and any kind of imagination should never be put down."

I know I shouldn't say this, but this really seems like self-projection. I won't go into details, again, but if you're going to write a post about a topic, please, remain objective and attempt to keep your own views out of it. Topics, debates, arguments, as soon as someone brings themselves into it, it devolves into a terrible competition of ego-measurement and victim complexes. If you want topics to remain on-track in the future, keep in mind that whenever you mention yourself  you put yourself at risk of people jabbing you for doing so.

 

"If you think it's a case of going against cannon lore, then simple don't role play with that person, or ask that person questions in a kind way to see what it is about that character that has drawn them into it so much. Don't instantly put someone down because they are not role playing your exact interpretation of blizzards cannon lore."

I can agree with this statement, to a certain extent. It's the duty of others to assist and guide their fellow roleplayers if they make mistakes, rather than smacking them over the head and calling them names. Of course, there are exceptions, and unfortunately they are quite numerous. These are people who simply do not care about whatever you have to say, whether it be positive or negative. They block out hatred, as well as actual constructive feedback, and devolve into a static piece of sludge that can barely be called a 'character', simply turning into a tool of self-gratification and power-play. These people are the reason why people are so damn bitter in regards to giving advice, why they lash out, why they seem to want to beat you into place. It's not because they're inherently nasty people (sometimes they are, to be fair), but rather because they've simply tried so many times to be nice about it, and have subsequently been either ignored or bashed for simply trying to help, that they themselves have turned to using more confrontational means when approaching a character they seem as unreasonable. In short; guidance is great, critique even more, rough handling is meh, and yelling's a no.

 

Overall, I can't help but feel that this topic approached the issue from a completely wrong angle. I can understand you had good intentions, but all you've done is hit a hornets nest and expected the hornets to calm down. In future, please, approach from an objective angle, and refrain from pointing fingers (even in a general sense).