Grey areas like that should probably have some clarification so that everyone is on the same page, there's a few things like that where looking at things from one perspective of how things are IC, they can make no sense, whereas if from another, due to the game mechanics, it can seem acceptable to some at the same time and there's no clear ruling - there's a lot of ways to look at stuff and unfortunately seems to mostly depend on individual players' head canons of stuff at the moment - I think we need more lore on the way/help file, for all the common subjects of dispute, so that everyone can be on the same level really
(This is sort of going offtopic to another thread about The Way though, it seems like it keeps coming up and there's no clear direction)
Anyway on the thread... I sort of agree cos I'm pretty sure some newbie players just quit after dying in a lame way to people just killing off characters because they can without any real story to it etc, which seems really sad, I guess statistics would show how common that is, even if just on the staff side, it's probably worth looking at - one thing I noticed from the colour chart thread is that a blind player that posted in it was talking in their last posts about how they get emotional about permadeath in games too much, and then a little after that, they never post again, and can probably guess what happened there (though at the same time if someone genuinely feels like it's too depressing then egging on when don't really want to deal with Tales of Trauma Desert Edition probably isn't the best either, though maybe it can help people deal with death better in real life at the same time, this could actually make an interesting study into if it does have any therapeutic effects - in Arm you have to deal with constant death in a way that most western countries aren't used to dealing with since Victorian times yet is a fact of life for most of the world, and though some countries
in particular Russia are very Zalanthas in different ways too, a lot of the aspects are also painfully reflected in other countries as well, through a black mirror)
BUT... It really does seem like there is less separation between IC and OOC in Armageddon then there should be for a lot of people, with people participating in conflicts against the same characters onto new characters when it doesn't really seem appropriate due to OOC knowledge - or even on characters that have no role-related motivations as a reason, a bit obviously snubbing characters that were involved in previous character dramas (I've noticed another thing is that there doesn't seem to be any real clear guidance on making characters that act very similarly to previous characters, it sort of breaks immersion for me at times) as well as a kind of Tuluki type thing where it's culturally discouraged to talk about this kind of stuff OOC. But people are human, and not everyone is the same, and I think that's -really- important to understand, that not everyone can compartmentalise to the same extent (though to be fair, for all the potential for problems, it might just help to create some of the best stories as in method acting, when people get into it to that extent - I couldn't and wouldn't say it's entirely a bad thing, I've seen roleplay on other games and there are some seriously DULL people, I love all of you lot and want the best for everyone <3)
APMs are awesome for closure. You hear things
I think that seeing or hearing about close OOC friendships between staff and players can feel a bit exclusionary to newer people who keep to the forum and its rules with time to talking about IC stuff - I remember seeing this come up in a couple reviews as well I think this shouldn't be ignored and it -matters-, everyone should try consider that we are all sort of ambassadors for the game in a way and realise that it gives the impression that people get more leeway than others and that affects new intake of people that we all might otherwise be interested in - I think a lot of people feel more comfortable when things are kept professional, and I seriously appreciate it when staff work hard to maintain that thin blue line that really needs to be there to make it fair for everyone.
At the same time though I think it's really nice for people to talk about how stuff made them feel, the "
What happened to" thread seems brilliant really, and having that kind of knowledge even if it's years later seems really lovely, I think there will always be people willing to contribute at the appropriate times on that thread - as a noob I have to say it's actually really nice to see people who had IC conflicts with their characters chatting away later over how interesting stuff was and I think allays a lot of worries that people might otherwise have, it shows how good the community is really, it's a great advertisement
