AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic

just started not too long ago and I have to say compared to arelith the immersion breaking on this server is really bad...it seems as if it's welcomed and not frowned upon..

everything from one guy talking about is significant other coming home and all hell breaking loose...some person is talking about pokemon and his dick...casual convo's being carried out in the midst of partying...it seems a bit ridiculous....I was wondering if more dm enforcement could be made on the various chat channels?

it's very hard to ~feel in character here...

Party chat is OOC, and since a lot of the people have gotten to know each other IRL too, people tend to talk abut all kinds of off-topic things. If it happens in normal chat, you can and should ask people to take it to tells or party chat instead.

I am known for speaking Finnish is party chat, to the delight of the DM team.

even so how am I supposed to feel ic if something like party chat is allowed and I have to read inbetween the lines of rp and nonsense

It comes down to personal preference. Amia is not like Arelith to my understanding, which is possibly the point, but I can understand immersion being difficult to achieve. A lot of people just block party chat and may or may not tell people that if there's something important OOC to be notified, just do it in chat with the OOC tag "//". But you can just ask people to quiet the party chatter (politely, please) and usually they comply.

DMs occasionally lay the hammer down on party chat so I wouldn't say it's encouraged, but most of us probably don't mind/are used to it. It's nice to maintain a casual, friendly environment like that, especially when things get rough In Character, I feel. Really though, if it is a problem for you, don't be afraid to just ask straight up, when the situation arises.

Most people who feel bothered by this turn off their party chat!

well the point being there is no immersion on this server

Vujuir wrote:

even so how am I supposed to feel ic if something like party chat is allowed and I have to read inbetween the lines of rp and nonsense

Ah, I have a technical solution to this. By rick clicking the black bar on top of the chat you can disable the party chat from it. Then do the same on the game mechanics side of the feed and enable party chat there.

Much cleaner. I hope this helps.

Vujuir wrote:

well the point being there is no immersion on this server

I politely disagree and your assertion is not sufficiently supported by available evidence.

Silvarus has the right of it. Some people get comfortable with each other and forget about the want for immersion from others, so it doesn't hurt to ask them to be considerate. Barring that, party chat can be disabled with a right click from the radial menu.

In fact, I will ask whomever that was on your behalf to please help increase this new player's immersion in Amia by limiting your OOC chatter.

Except for the pokemon/dick conversation. You can tell me all about that. (Hint: I don't really care about pokemon.)

You can move party chat over to the right window too, so less distracted by it, but not missing everything like people saying they've gone AFK or whatever. But yeah, people do generally cut down if asked politely.

I wouldn't say there is no immersion. Some people are able to better maintain it despite any OOC things cropping up. It all comes down to what is your own preference, really. If people are devolving to too much Party chat at the expense of IC occurrences, we do usually ask people to cut down on it, or to stop entirely in any events.

I'd have to agree. I got a party invite last week with my dwarf and the whole time it was party chat party chat party chat, trying to say anything IC was impossible because nobody else was, just a mad dash for the next group of spawns. Same thing last night too with my human another lowbie I ran into. Tried a little RP in the market hall and he'd already dashed out the door. I know our little dungeon run was planned OOC, but still, I needed boots of speed to catch up with him.

That being said.. There are a lot more players than what we've run into. Don't run off just yet, stick around a bit. Unless you're a dwarf hater, give this a look: http://www.amiaworld.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=75722&p=1250526#p1250526. From the little bit I got to hang with them yesterday they seem like a rock solid bunch (no pun intended). Granted a bit of grinding will be in order, as I've been informed Barak Runedar isn't exactly lowbie friendly.

Again, don't get discouraged and Game On!

what im getting at is while I can disable it...it seems there is quite a lot of ic meetups and information exchanged via party chat..if I disable it im just shooting myself in the foot

In which case you ask them politely to tone down their OOC and favor the IC.

A hypothetical to ponder.... on a RP server, does /party chat serve any legitimate and indispensable purpose, ever? Would we be any worse off if the server just mechanically eliminated the /party channel, much like the /shout channel is often nixed, and then declared that all communication must be either IC or in /tells?

It does. The trick is ensuring people use it responsibly.

Vujuir wrote:

what im getting at is while I can disable it...it seems there is quite a lot of ic meetups and information exchanged via party chat..if I disable it im just shooting myself in the foot

Well you need to pick the lesser of two evils.

I only OOC in party chats wherein I know people are comfortable with OOC conversations, otherwise I'm rare to speak OOC (even making OOC comments about IC events).

There are ways to completely immerse yourself but, as with tabletop D&D, OOC does help formulate and co-ordinate things better.

I wouldn't be too heartbroken if Party Chat was nulled like the shout channel.

Oh, if your problem is with the fact that arranging stuff OOC has become part of the server culture, then yeah not much to be done about that. It's an old, old, grindy sort of game, and the OOC is used mainly to speed up the process and move onto RP or sometimes "more fulfilling RP". But if you don't mind that little bit then yeah just a matter of asking politely when the OOC gets a bit much.

Liz wrote:

A hypothetical to ponder.... on a RP server, does /party chat serve any legitimate and indispensable purpose, ever? Would we be any worse off if the server just mechanically eliminated the /party channel, much like the /shout channel is often nixed, and then declared that all communication must be either IC or in /tells?

Well I would be sad about it or something? Like I/others said earlier it's nice for establishing a positive rapport with other players, just as long as it doesn't force actual RP into a backseat. Leveling will never not be important and for some people there's more grind in the game than there is room for RP to be engaged in whilst grinding.

Vujuir wrote:

what im getting at is while I can disable it...it seems there is quite a lot of ic meetups and information exchanged via party chat..if I disable it im just shooting myself in the foot

I think I see what you mean.

If people are outright metagaming with the party chat, give them a solid whipping. They deserve it.

People should be using IC methods for such really, yeah. Be that messengers/letters or what have you than the ooc medium. The ooc stuff isn't encouraged as far as I am aware, and there is work being done towards generating a better IC way of meeting up for hunting parties than the current rather OOC one.

Yeah, we need to do a better job at keeping ooc to a low. I can say for myself, I have been really bad at this lately. Part of the problem is that we've been playing with the same people for quite some time now, and so everyone is a buddy or a pal more or less. So we tend to goof off. But thank you for bringing this up as a new player, it reminds me I need to be more aware about other people's beginnings!

The worst is when the OOC spam starts in the middle of events. That's just what I think though.

I treat Amia as if it's a silly smack'em'up married to nominally grownup game of Let's Pretend, so, yep, lotsa OOC nattering from me.

I just leave party with no explanations or apologies if I'm not feeling in the mood for the chatter. If you miss anything IC by doing this, then the other people are Doing it Wrong. That's really all there is to it.

I've found that the when the chatter is going on is the big factor on when it's to much. The big hin parties are good at that. If we are all in rp or events you'll get almost no ooc chatter. At that point it's off to tell hell for most ooc stuff except the normal gotta log type party chat. If it's 1 am and we are all off doing random nothingness like treasure hunting, making potion, using the job system, etc. the poor dm (if there are any insomniac DMs on) get to listen to us talk mad smack in party.

Last edited by IronAngel on Wed, Feb 26 2014, 18:51 PM, edited 1 time in total.

I sympathise. There are portions of the playerbase who use the party chat as a substitute for RP. Especially for a new player, it can be very intimidating and daunting to step up against who might be established players and what could be the general server culture. It might be awkward, and you might burn some bridges.

I am self-righteous and old enough as a player that I feel I can wave my dick in the face of people who I feel are too OOC. Doubt there are many bridges left for me to burn. Usually, though, I simply ignore OOC comments (especially if they're related to the game and should be said IC) or pointedly try to contradict IC something that was said OOC. If someone says in party chat, "ABC loot?", I might say IC "Since we haven't agreed on how split the spoils, I'll just hold onto everything and share the profits when we get back to town." Or whatever, depending on the PC. That should get the point across.

Sometimes rarely people go OOC in the public Talk channel. That is absolutely BS and unjustified under almost any circumstances. You don't need to tell everyone you're going to the toilet, let alone make a "funny" comment about something IC. At that point, I may curtly tell them to shut up. That's entirely fine and will get you street cred among the cool guys.

Personally I don't see it as a matter of immersion, though. I rarely immerse myself in RP. For me, it's more about character studies, story-telling and world-portrayal. I am an outsider watching my character and making him do things - I am not the person in the story. That's why I've never been bothered with immersive surroundings and stuff, I rarely even watch what's going on on the screen outside of the chat window. OOC comments just annoy me because they're usually stupid, bad form, and imply that I actually want to be buddy-buddy with total strangers on the Internet who are just moving parts in a game I enjoy. (That's not what I think of people I get to know, but I might, and the assumption that your great ideas interest strangers on the talk/party channel makes you look like a fool.) But that's just me. For others, it might be about immersion. And for many, it's about hanging out and having fun with their friends, like you do at a PnP session (I've been at freeform PnP sessions that were entirely serious and in character, and classic D&D dungeon-crawls full of metacommentary and good fun). We just have to find a way to make do.

I don't see what the big deal is. If you don't want to hear the party blather, move it to it's own window and minimize it. Problem solved.

I dont mind ooc in party chat as I can move/ disable it.

I do really dislike the (( ooc in say though, even the afk and back messages I can do without and complaints about lag I find even worse. I find that much more immersion breaking then party chat. I rather enjoy some friendly bantering often.

I am playing here for my fun and part of that is bantering at times. I am a 100% against enforced restrictions on party chat save that no ic matters should be handled through it and no one should be insulted through it.

Damnit. Nobody ever does things exactly the way I want! I mean surely by now you've all heard from my parents about how special I am?

Seriously its not really an issue because you can filter out party chat to another window. The reason most of us use party chat while grinding with each other is because we've run the same dungeon 10 times and after a while emotion OMG look at the ceiling is dithering and stupid.

In straight up RP situations, while just chilling in the town square or my fancy villa, I can get annoyed at the over use of the party channel and I'll turn it off and tell people that I've done it. and on the flipside if someone goes afk and says so in party chat, and another player isn't using the party channel I'll try to send them a tell to keep them knowledgeable.

There are also times I'll want to go kill things and emote how badass I'm doing it or shout commands IC etc. As you get higher level this lessons because of the dependency on timed buffs and xp/hour desires of us people who get bored easily. I also play a character my bard/kc that I have to be constantly and I mean CONSTANTLY using quick bars and spells, songs, auras and so forth or I'm not as affective and this takes concentration away from typing long emotes and discussing politics while fighting ogres and dragons and angry squid people. And my other character a quarterstaff weilding thwacker kills anything pretty much in 1 round. So if I spend time typing, unless its about 2 seconds long I go flatfooted and die. Not talking while in a grind is pleasant to me sometimes because I'm more effective, I don't die, I'm not a drag to the party I'm in, shit gets done, its faster, temp buffs dont fail midspawn and I die, and because shooting the shit in combat is not normal. Don't believe war movies there are no love, romance, polituical debates, etc in a fire fight or a sword fight.

However... I'm fine with extended resting periods etc to do the above things I said are naughty and discussing where too next, etc. And that sort of things. But when the lights are flashing and its time to smash. I tend to get a one track mind of faster faster faster. This is not to dis-value your RP, if someone is rather talkative I'll usually respond in kind and from what I've seen nearly everyone does the same.

There are several tools in your wheelhouse now.
1) Be assertive
2) Change the end-user settings (party chat filter or separate window)
3) Deal with it.

You're going to have to buck up and choose one. I'm not trying to be overly harsh here but you need to realize that there are different playing styles. For a large group this seems to work so its the current server atmosphere.

To Liz suggestion of completely taking out the party chat ..

yes it really does serve a purpose. Particularly during events when not everyone can hear each other in range of an area but by using party chat, a character can 'yell' across the map or even back into a cave or out of said cave. This make sense?

MOD

Don't see any problem. Don't like party chat turn it off. Nobody makes you listen or do things you don't like, so stop trying to make others play how you want to.

Vujuir wrote:

well the point being there is no immersion on this server

On the flip side to this, I attempted some light hearted banter with player here recently through a tell - and I was told stay IC via tell! Crazy.

My opinion and approach - I feel if you can't establish some sort of positive rapport behind the scenes (party chat, tells) then what's the point playing with them in character? Bright side - It's 99% to the positive here for me though.. I'm trying to establish the around the table PnP approach. I'd never invite someone to my home and play DnD if I couldn't get along with them. Same here as far as I'm concerned (playing with them in a party for example)

My advice to OP would be to party with other like minded individuals if it's driving you bonkers.

Folks, let's try to set the new guy straight in a friendly way if we can. He may not be trying to do anything save expressing his opinion that he wants an immersive role playing experience in our server. Just let him know how to do that and leave the rest up to him.

Mmhm, what Yoss said. Please be a little more civil about it folks.

I think the new guy can help us in a way really - He put a finger on a problem we did not see. Why do we not acknowledge that problem and see if we cannot solve it. Or at least reduce it?

If you view this topic you can also learn a few tricks to make roleplaying easier, Like separating the talk and party chatt window.

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3. How to split chat windows

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4. How to Change Party chat to the other window

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Guess you just had bad luck. I never had that problem with the exception of people having to wait in big events and growing bored because they were "on hold".

Yossarin wrote:

Folks, let's try to set the new guy straight in a friendly way if we can. He may not be trying to do anything save expressing his opinion that he wants an immersive role playing experience in our server. Just let him know how to do that and leave the rest up to him.

While I whole-heartedly agree with your sentiment, I will make few bones about it, I play Amia exactly for what it is: it is a game that hasn't forgotten what games are about. It's fun, relaxed, a place to either blow off stream mindlessly smashing monsters or intensely roleplaying your character's persona in a town square with others. I like this about Amia, it is a very big reason why I choose to play this server over the (very) many other servers I've spent time on since NWN was first published.

Party chat, OOC, and tell are OOC communications since nobody's PC is a telepath or psionicist.

There are plenty of utterly oppressive, dull servers out there where the staff and playerbase have created a boring, unfun atmosphere to play. If party chat and OOC aren't someone's cup of tea, they can find any one of these rather than try to make something most people like into something there is already far too much of. I could suggest _many_ of those. The OP already is familiar with Arelith, there's no reason to make an Arelith II (cringe).

Once a server starts feeling like a second job I'm getting unpaid for or a low-rent version of Second Life, I start looking for another.

I support the original post.

And while I actively filter party chat in every turn, I've noticed that some people have an affinity to just use // tags in public chat for their side comments, which cannot be blocked out.

My take on this?

It's alright to do things like // AFK, 1 sec, sorry!, as long as it's short and not sequence breaking.

However, if you're seeing pages full of OOC stuff, it's a problem. PCs outside of the entry are in Character and it should be so expected of players to behave that way.

NinjaClarinet wrote:

I just leave party with no explanations or apologies if I'm not feeling in the mood for the chatter. If you miss anything IC by doing this, then the other people are Doing it Wrong. That's really all there is to it.

Tho I rarely leave the party I hope people agree I do not move my RP forward via party chat. I agree with NC on this.

Shroud wrote:

I support the original post.

Plus, the party chat is constantly off on my UI. I really am one of those anti-social people who hate OOC crap on RP servers. Party chat or not. When I do feel an urge to say something OOC I send a tell.

Vujuir wrote:

just started not too long ago and I have to say compared to arelith the immersion breaking on this server is really bad...it seems as if it's welcomed and not frowned upon..

everything from one guy talking about is significant other coming home and all hell breaking loose...some person is talking about pokemon and his dick...casual convo's being carried out in the midst of partying...it seems a bit ridiculous....I was wondering if more dm enforcement could be made on the various chat channels?

it's very hard to ~feel in character here...

Party chat is OOC and as people said if you dislike it, turn it off. Some people like a more light ended RP server as opposed to say the 1940s Germany of arelith.

I know I like to have the option to chat in party in the slow times or they/I run the risk of just logging off, because guard duty is lame as hell when its you and a bunch of NPCs who cant talk or your solo hunting because really RPing by yourself when hunting is stupid....*emotes stabbing or getting stabbed 10000000 times and maybe picking up crap 20 times?* its like when I tried to emote the job system of cutting trees and collecting stone alone you can only emote chopping so many ways before you just give up and party chat keeps you from logging off.

I don't party chat much.

Except when I drink.

Yeah..

Except when I drink.. <.<

MadrikVale wrote:

I don't party chat much.

Except when I drink.

Yeah..

Except when I drink.. <.<

Me too, but that's pretty often in EST nighttime hours as people have no doubt noticed.

I'm used to OOC here and there, but only when it would do more good than ill. I keep my stuff for myself normally, or shoot a tell for some remark crossing my mind, or depending how along I get with the people around plainly // openly or use the party chat. But I would only do so if I feel confident or there's a record of OOC chat before.

Although, I do use the party chat for RP in rare occasions, when talking outside the chat range as example...

But that's just me and I normally don't get into deep and immersive RP, and when I do, I only OOC due to my endless ability of epic tier to typo and murder the language.

I apologize if I came off a bit obnoxious which wasn't my intent..my original post was simply in regards to an extreme example and was the exception and not the norm from what I've seen..after much reading I can see the benefits of those that agree or disagree with party chat etc...once again sorry

As the brash individual I often am I'll usually just go //back IC guys, if I feel we've been talking too long about our respective dicks.

I don't think you'll get entirely IC everything seems that RL people in Amia are too friendly. Which I think is a good thing.

You have some really good options. Like moving the party chat to the right, I always do this.

HOWEVER, you can also be the shining beacon of IC-ness! For example, when I see the conversation of loot arrangement start up in party chat my little character pipes up IC with something like, "There are items to take, ladies first then George, John, Paul and Ringo last if that's acceptable." I've had female drow, who ICly should take all the loot, do things like "Male! Come pick this up, I'm not carrying everything you fool!" for my male drow character.

AND do share your opinion with others and let them know you'd like more IC-ness. I'm sure they will have some good advice and options for you.

Hopefully you find that happy medium.

Does Arelith's immersion count for much though? When I play there I find shifters in Cordor peeing on people. That place is silly and I think any comparison of Amia and Arelith is kind of invalid. Yes, we have more fun than them. But yes, we also have standards.

Mercedes wrote:

MadrikVale wrote:

I don't party chat much.

Except when I drink.

Yeah..

Except when I drink.. <.<

Me too, but that's pretty often in EST nighttime hours as people have no doubt noticed.

Also as a janitor who drinks a lot... I know what you mean. I know that feel bro.

so much ooc on this server?

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