forced gm events
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robopirateninja
Staff Emeritus
he was being sarcastic and responding to the OP, not you. chillax dude
gorgetrapper
Dalayan Beginner
When I first started playing on this server, a few years ago, the playerbase was REALLY low, probably like 90 at the most at peak times. I'm now seeing upwards of 400 to 500 at peak times. This would imply that Wiz is actually doing a really great fucking job with pretty much everything that he's trying to accomplish. Of course, it would be hard to do any of this without his staff, so they need some recognition in how the server's direction has become.
All I'm trying to say is, this is a minor thing. Just be glad this "dark rot" doesn't do more than what has already been stated. If it started to make you lose HP every tick like a normal disease usually does, then maybe there would be something to bitch about. I'm not much of a roleplayer myself, or like to take part in a lot of events because as it seems, high levels always seem to take over any kind of event that comes in to play. I for one, would GLADLY go and finish this "dark rot" epidemic, to shut people like you up.
All I'm trying to say is, this is a minor thing. Just be glad this "dark rot" doesn't do more than what has already been stated. If it started to make you lose HP every tick like a normal disease usually does, then maybe there would be something to bitch about. I'm not much of a roleplayer myself, or like to take part in a lot of events because as it seems, high levels always seem to take over any kind of event that comes in to play. I for one, would GLADLY go and finish this "dark rot" epidemic, to shut people like you up.
Botiemaster
Dalayan Beginner
Technically you do have a choice here. No one is forcing you to hang out in cities or to raid around people that have dark rot. But anyone who has said it's only a matter of time before everyone gets it was pretty right. I've been hiding since it started because being a tank you can't really afford to have a perma disease to take up a buff slot. Tanks already click all kinds of good buffs so they just have tanking buffs up + the standard open slot for HoT. Last night I finally just gave in and accepted I was going to get it because we're not going to cancel raids over it and of course I caught it last night during a mini raid. I'll drop haste or something til it's cured.
I guess I believe it should be kept to RP players because that is why the RP guild exists as far as I can guess but I'm certainly not going to whine about it. SoD is Wiz's game, I just play here. So I live with whatever is put out there. I will however complain about people snapping at me for daring to say "yeah dark rot sucks for taking up a buff slot" when it's been brought up to me because it's pretty far from complaining like a lot of people have been doing. Case in point: this thread. I'm going to live with dark rot. I don't care to discuss it, I have better things to do, except at this very moment which is bed time for me. If you're going to talk to me about it, you're going to have to live with me telling you what I think about it. So, don't bug me about dark rot if you can't handle what I have to say about it and MAYBE I'll care to help you cure it when you're not falsely accusing me of bitching when you're the one who came to me and started the damn convo. Thanks! :toot:
I guess I believe it should be kept to RP players because that is why the RP guild exists as far as I can guess but I'm certainly not going to whine about it. SoD is Wiz's game, I just play here. So I live with whatever is put out there. I will however complain about people snapping at me for daring to say "yeah dark rot sucks for taking up a buff slot" when it's been brought up to me because it's pretty far from complaining like a lot of people have been doing. Case in point: this thread. I'm going to live with dark rot. I don't care to discuss it, I have better things to do, except at this very moment which is bed time for me. If you're going to talk to me about it, you're going to have to live with me telling you what I think about it. So, don't bug me about dark rot if you can't handle what I have to say about it and MAYBE I'll care to help you cure it when you're not falsely accusing me of bitching when you're the one who came to me and started the damn convo. Thanks! :toot:
AoiMasamune
Dalayan Beginner
Wow, that first post was horribly handled. Now that the community is up in arms and lines are drawn in the sand, responding in with something in the OPs favor seems very dangerous to me. Hopefully I can keep things calm while elaborating on his points he probably meant to make, but did a terrible job of making.
I'm bringing to bear several years of experience in Tabletop RPing from the DM side of table. What RP events are really, is a bridge between Tabletop and MMO RPGs. The interactivity and actual ROLEPLAYING of TT and the visual experience of the MMO. Now DMing is a ridiculously complicated task to do well. You have to monitor your players emotions constantly and react to them, while exercising your creative muscles and your literary skills to describe an adaptive, interactive world where the players live out their fantasies in the constant Illusion that what they are hearing you describe, is in fact real. The hallmark of a game ran by a good DM is that the players react emotionally as if they were their characters.
In RL stuff happens everyday that people don't like, nothing to do about it but live with it. This isn't fun though. Every DM sooner or later realizes that people just don't like not having a choice in things. If your group your running doesn't want to go fight your ogre high priest of man-eating doom, they're not going to. Unless of course you force them to. They'll fight your ogre, but they won't be happy about it, and most of them won't have any fun. In TT it's the equivalent of gaming group genocide. When a group stops having fun, they stop getting together for games, and there is no group. In TT this technique is commonly called "Railroading, Leading-by-the-nose, or Ghetto DMing (because it shows a lack of skill on the DM's part)"
The choice doesn't have to be blatantly obvious. It can even be subconscious. In this example there will be a situation very similar to the one the citizens of Dalaya are facing. A group of adventurers wanders into a town where the denizens have a strange disease, and the DM has planned his game for tonight around finding the cure. To the DM it would be a disaster if the players were like, "Screw sick people, lets get the hell out of Dodge before we get sick." All that work is ruined, and now the DM has to think on his feet and come up with a decent new 4 - 6 hour game off the top of his head with no prep. It's not a good situation. In both of the following examples the DM will 'force' the players to play the game he has prepared. In example A the technique of choice will be Railroading. In B I will use motivation control.
Example A:
Players walk into town (Description goes here)
Players: Wow, whats wrong with everyone?
DM: Some people have blisters and boils on their faces, a child is wretching in the streets. They are obviously very Ill.
Players: Screw that lets get outta here, I don't wanna get sick.
DM: You turn and leave then?
Players: Yea we're gone, I don't mess with plagues.
DM: Alright, you leave town. After a couple of days on the road, your halfling begins to feel very cold, his skin is hot to the touch, and he begins shaking uncontrollably.
Players: Oh crap, he's got the damn plague doesn't he?
DM: I'm afraid so.
Players(the cleric). I cast Cure Disease.
DM: A warm glow suffuses the halfling, but his skin is still hot, and he doesn't feel any better.
Players: (getting slightly angry) So it didn't work?
DM: I guess not.
Players: Didn't you read the spell description? It says it cures any disease!
DM: Not this one, Me = DM, this game = My world. Rule #1 in this game, remember? (Thats actually in the rule books btw)
Players: So we're supposed to go back and explore that town now right?
DM: That would be a good guess.
The players then explore the town, discover the cure, and the rest of the night goes ok.
Notice how the illusion and flow was destroyed as players leaped for the rule books? The game functionally stopped dead, and tempers flared. It was only through exercising sheer force of will that the DM kept everything in line. I've seen games explode for this. All the players leave angry, the DM doesn't understand what just happened. And the anger goes on to destroy further games with that DM as his reputation for being 'Ghetto' builds. Gods forbid he should introduce any new players to the genre, because they could be turned off for life.
Example B:
Players walk into town (Description goes here)
Players: Wow, whats wrong with everyone?
DM: Some people have blisters and boils on their faces, a child is wretching in the streets. They are obviously very Ill.
Players: Screw that lets get outta here, I don't wanna get sick.
DM: As you turn to leave, a young woman woman dashes out to the street from a nearby house. She is wailing and tears are leaving streaks in the dust on her face. She turns desperate eyes towards the party and runs towards you, yelling "Help me! Please!"
Players(Cleric): I step forward and stop her.
DM: She stops before you and kneels at your feet. She holds her arms up to you in a pleading gesture. She yells up at you in a choking voice, "My mother, she's very sick, please help her!"
Players(Cleric): Guys, I want to check this out.
Players: Crap I don't want to catch whatever is going around here.
Players(Cleric): It'll be alright, the gods will protect us, now miss, where is your mother?
Another tear jerking scene plays out where the mother offers her substantial life savings to the players if they will help her. The rest of the night goes smoothly and everyone enjoys the drama.
Flow was unbroken, true emotion was invoked, an excellent game.
To quote the matrix, the problem is choice. If your going to encourage roleplaying, there should be more than one role to play so the players interact with each other and the world in a meaningful way. Otherwise, it's obviously forced and fosters negativity at worst, possibly boredom at best. That being said, for me, any opportunity to Roleplay in an MMO (roleplay in the real sense, with other players) is a godsend, and I'll take what I can get.
I'm bringing to bear several years of experience in Tabletop RPing from the DM side of table. What RP events are really, is a bridge between Tabletop and MMO RPGs. The interactivity and actual ROLEPLAYING of TT and the visual experience of the MMO. Now DMing is a ridiculously complicated task to do well. You have to monitor your players emotions constantly and react to them, while exercising your creative muscles and your literary skills to describe an adaptive, interactive world where the players live out their fantasies in the constant Illusion that what they are hearing you describe, is in fact real. The hallmark of a game ran by a good DM is that the players react emotionally as if they were their characters.
In RL stuff happens everyday that people don't like, nothing to do about it but live with it. This isn't fun though. Every DM sooner or later realizes that people just don't like not having a choice in things. If your group your running doesn't want to go fight your ogre high priest of man-eating doom, they're not going to. Unless of course you force them to. They'll fight your ogre, but they won't be happy about it, and most of them won't have any fun. In TT it's the equivalent of gaming group genocide. When a group stops having fun, they stop getting together for games, and there is no group. In TT this technique is commonly called "Railroading, Leading-by-the-nose, or Ghetto DMing (because it shows a lack of skill on the DM's part)"
The choice doesn't have to be blatantly obvious. It can even be subconscious. In this example there will be a situation very similar to the one the citizens of Dalaya are facing. A group of adventurers wanders into a town where the denizens have a strange disease, and the DM has planned his game for tonight around finding the cure. To the DM it would be a disaster if the players were like, "Screw sick people, lets get the hell out of Dodge before we get sick." All that work is ruined, and now the DM has to think on his feet and come up with a decent new 4 - 6 hour game off the top of his head with no prep. It's not a good situation. In both of the following examples the DM will 'force' the players to play the game he has prepared. In example A the technique of choice will be Railroading. In B I will use motivation control.
Example A:
Players walk into town (Description goes here)
Players: Wow, whats wrong with everyone?
DM: Some people have blisters and boils on their faces, a child is wretching in the streets. They are obviously very Ill.
Players: Screw that lets get outta here, I don't wanna get sick.
DM: You turn and leave then?
Players: Yea we're gone, I don't mess with plagues.
DM: Alright, you leave town. After a couple of days on the road, your halfling begins to feel very cold, his skin is hot to the touch, and he begins shaking uncontrollably.
Players: Oh crap, he's got the damn plague doesn't he?
DM: I'm afraid so.
Players(the cleric). I cast Cure Disease.
DM: A warm glow suffuses the halfling, but his skin is still hot, and he doesn't feel any better.
Players: (getting slightly angry) So it didn't work?
DM: I guess not.
Players: Didn't you read the spell description? It says it cures any disease!
DM: Not this one, Me = DM, this game = My world. Rule #1 in this game, remember? (Thats actually in the rule books btw)
Players: So we're supposed to go back and explore that town now right?
DM: That would be a good guess.
The players then explore the town, discover the cure, and the rest of the night goes ok.
Notice how the illusion and flow was destroyed as players leaped for the rule books? The game functionally stopped dead, and tempers flared. It was only through exercising sheer force of will that the DM kept everything in line. I've seen games explode for this. All the players leave angry, the DM doesn't understand what just happened. And the anger goes on to destroy further games with that DM as his reputation for being 'Ghetto' builds. Gods forbid he should introduce any new players to the genre, because they could be turned off for life.
Example B:
Players walk into town (Description goes here)
Players: Wow, whats wrong with everyone?
DM: Some people have blisters and boils on their faces, a child is wretching in the streets. They are obviously very Ill.
Players: Screw that lets get outta here, I don't wanna get sick.
DM: As you turn to leave, a young woman woman dashes out to the street from a nearby house. She is wailing and tears are leaving streaks in the dust on her face. She turns desperate eyes towards the party and runs towards you, yelling "Help me! Please!"
Players(Cleric): I step forward and stop her.
DM: She stops before you and kneels at your feet. She holds her arms up to you in a pleading gesture. She yells up at you in a choking voice, "My mother, she's very sick, please help her!"
Players(Cleric): Guys, I want to check this out.
Players: Crap I don't want to catch whatever is going around here.
Players(Cleric): It'll be alright, the gods will protect us, now miss, where is your mother?
Another tear jerking scene plays out where the mother offers her substantial life savings to the players if they will help her. The rest of the night goes smoothly and everyone enjoys the drama.
Flow was unbroken, true emotion was invoked, an excellent game.
To quote the matrix, the problem is choice. If your going to encourage roleplaying, there should be more than one role to play so the players interact with each other and the world in a meaningful way. Otherwise, it's obviously forced and fosters negativity at worst, possibly boredom at best. That being said, for me, any opportunity to Roleplay in an MMO (roleplay in the real sense, with other players) is a godsend, and I'll take what I can get.
seriously i dont get what the big deal is... i see 1 person upset that they cant do their own thing.. when they can.. you dont have to participate in the cure and you will still get cured most likely.. all u have to deal with is a little debuff and 1 less buff slot.. is that to much to deal with? i have the dark rot on my druid.. i would like to help out.. but im currently away without sod.. but even if i had sod id probably just be pling my sk or something atm.. doing my own thing.. this doesnt force u to do shit so uhm... get over it?
samus12345
Dalayan Beginner
The real issue I have with this plague is that infected people keep sitting around heavily trafficed areas, or even narrow passageways, where there is no way to avoid them. Minor inconvenience or not, I'd like to not be infected. It's extremely rude to just stand/sit around where players will have to come near you when you can very easily go somewhere out of the way. I've seen 3 examples already: One person sitting in front of the bank in the sewers (far enough away that I know he wasn't using it), one blocking the passage into Thurgadin, and one sitting on the bridge into Athica. Come on people, show a little courtesy and sit somewhere out of the way, it's not hard. If you have to use the bank, or sell, or tradeskill, or anything that requires you to be standing in a specific spot, fine, I understand. But none of these 3 did. I guess it does have the benefit of helping me discover who's an asshat and who isn't...but in the meantime, people are given another way to hamper my enjoyment of the game through their inconsideration.
Daelius
Dalayan Adventurer
well, people afk all the time. and they prefer to do it in major cities as it is safe there (for the most part). If you wanted to avoid it, there are many different cities that people don't go to, like kelethin (gfay) and sadri malath. You can just avoid major cities if you wish to avoid infection, or you can deal with the fact that being in one of these places may get you to be infected.
I can't believe how worked up people have been getting over the whole Dark Rot thing. I'm really looking forward to how it plays out. The disease is here to stay, and if you don't like it, then try expressing your interest in getting the event going so we can kill The Hierophant and get rid of Dark Rot once and for all, instead of complaining about it! 
I don't understand how people feel that they are being forced into "participating" in a roleplaying event simply because of a disease. I'm sure there are more than enough of us willing to get the job done, and chances are there will be some awesome rewards along the way that you haters will likely miss out on because of your negative attitudes!
And for the record, I've never been much of a roleplayer. I'm a raider. I joined the Bearers of Truth as this event started and really had no idea what I was getting into. I was expecting a minor GM event and it turned out to be huge! I am glad I could be part of it, and hopefully I will see it through to the end.
I don't understand how people feel that they are being forced into "participating" in a roleplaying event simply because of a disease. I'm sure there are more than enough of us willing to get the job done, and chances are there will be some awesome rewards along the way that you haters will likely miss out on because of your negative attitudes!
And for the record, I've never been much of a roleplayer. I'm a raider. I joined the Bearers of Truth as this event started and really had no idea what I was getting into. I was expecting a minor GM event and it turned out to be huge! I am glad I could be part of it, and hopefully I will see it through to the end.
GuiardoTuneweaver
Staff Emeritus
samus12345
Dalayan Beginner
Daelius said:
I can bank and sell relatively safely, but if I want to travel I need to use a portal. The one in Newport is right next to the very crowded bank, so that's certainly out, but the Athica one can be gotten to without too many problems...IF people are courteous enough to not sit and stand around right near the entrance and bridge where others have to pass through. And if I want to go to a city such as Thurgadin for something, is it necessary for someone to stand in the very narrow tunnel leading into it? Why is it such a big deal to take a few seconds to move to a corner somewhere before going AFK? It just shows a lack of caring about other people, which of course isn't surprising. As RL goes, so do MMORPG's...but hope springs eternal, I suppose.
Oh, and as for being rounded up and thrown into camps, Wiz's post is encouraging. Since people can't be bothered to make the tiniest bit of effort to avoid infecting others, it makes sense that the guards would provide some encouragement. It wouldn't be necessary if people would just move off to the side, but apparently that's too much to expect.
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