Such a Leety Problem...

[Nulion]

Ooookay...I saw there was no thread here to kick off this issue, and quite honestly, I just want to provide a place for this whole mess to be discussed, civilly and resepctfully.

For those not in the know, Chrisax (On RK2) had been planning a small series of events meant to protest against the treatment of leets in The Grind.

A small event was planned for Saturday, during which Kintaii, already swarmed with people asking for T-shirts, got a weeeeeee bit miffed for having a whole ton of leets jumping around and shouting. It happens; I mean it was CHAOS in that place! Note to Kintaii; I don't know if you saw (The spam had to be horrendous), but I did try and give a heads' up on the little event Chrisax and his leety friends had planned. Of course my ISP went out before I could actually see what happened, so....I don't know for sure. My personal thought is that everybody was trying to be cool, everyone was trying to have a good time, Kintaii included, and quite honestly I have no idea how the poor man stood there for so long being swarmed by guys asking for t-shirts without needing a therapist. It was like watching a pack of hungry weasels swarming a cheese steak! My sincerest apologies to you Kintaii, although of course it was all in good fun.

ANYWAY!

The next day, Sunday, was the Council of Truth meeting on Rimor. The event that was to take place on that day was one in which Chrisax would give a speech in front of the Council about the treatment of leets in The Grind, and a leet-activist organization called 3L, which seemed to have been run by a swarm of intelligent leets. Cute little guys, really! Chrisax had been planning this event more or less since The Grind actually opened, and the event involved a gaggle of leets flooding the Council chambers, squeaking and being cute, protesting the imprisonment of their leety brethren in The Grind, and then actually kidnapping Chrisax, thus leaving WTF's all over the Council's faces.

What actually happened, was when the leets popped in, Silverstone did what Silverstone does best; he shot the leets dead, and....well, the event kinda stopped dead in its tracks. All the leets were either scattered or dead, and Chrisax still managed to disappear. Even with all this considered, the event caused QUITE a stir afterward, Chrisax still appeared to end up kidnapped, and the leets had seemed to accomplish their leety plan.

To tell the truth, I personally considered the event a success, I thought Silverstone's reaction was appropriate (Considering the enormous jerk the guy tends to be...but honestly, would we have him any other way? ), and everything seemed to have still gone according-ish to plan. Chrisax was missing, and that was the ultimate goal....but it wasn't all that simple.

I took forever getting to it, but, the issue here at hand is; should the personality of an ARK (In this case Simon Silverstone) override the carefully-laid plans of a player-run story arc? Simon could have easily not shot up the leets, and let the leety event continue...although I'm in the camp that does agree that Simon would be awfully intolerant of what is ultimately a rodent infestation inside Truth Tower.

Still, I respect Chrisax. He's a great guy who's been with the Council Staff on Rimor for years now, and I only want to see this whole mess put to a peaceful and reasonable end.



Chrisax? This little bit's for you! - You did a wonderful job engineering that event, I had a great time, and I'm not the only one! COOKIE!

Silverstone, or whoever plays him? This one's for you - I reeeeally enjoyed the whole day, and you did a helluva job staying true to the Silverstone character. Maybe it caused some issues, but in general we're surprised at how closely you stuck to it. Props to you


And everyone else? Keep it cool, okay? We're all just trying to have a good time, and sometimes events do take unexpected turns. When making an event, you've gotta embrace the unexpected and roll with it. Take the unpredictable nature of people and understand that not all things will go according to plan, but that in the end we'll all still have a good time enjoying the ride



This went on WAY longer than I'd intended it to, but lemme sum it up. I had a blast all weekend, I enjoyed every bit of every single thing that happened, I know I'm not the only one, and I wanna put this nastiness to rest.

And if you say something mean, no cookie for you.

[Dagget]

The basic issue here is that Events had been getting hints for months that something leety was gonna pop, yet one LTC put their 'persona' ahead of all other considerations, most notably the fact that they were disrupting a long-in-development player story arc that was clearly never going to threaten any AO canon.

Even if Simon would normally shoot leets on sight, the mere fact that they were able to infiltrate the CoT and were behaving so strangely should have given him pause to try and consider what was going on and gather data before deciding that shooting the leets was the best course of action. If we want a char that will simply shoot leets on sight, Events could save human resources and intellect and simply get an NPC guard placed inside the CoT who auto-aggros mobs. LTC's think before reacting to unexpected events.

Even a hurried OOC /tell to Chrisax from some hidden ARK warning of the impending consequences might have salvaged the event. As it stands now, the Roleplay community has lost one of their longest-participating members. I would strongly suggest that Events try to engage Chrisax (and perhaps other members of the roleplaying community) in some dialog so that matters can be sorted out, and everyone can go away with a clearer understanding how player-run storylines can be handled so episodes like Today's do not reoccur.


Note: the incident at The Grind we understood as Kintaii was clearly overwhelmed with other things and having a pack of leets chanting at his feet was perhaps a bit too much and led to his screaming at them to shut up. We later that night moved the script down by the DJ and it went off very well, with good reaction from people in the area.


Dagget
President, Venice Academy

[McKnuckleSamwich]

If chrisax is kidnapped, we've got to put together a concerted effort to get him back. He's my org pres, without him we're sunk

[Nulion]

Leave it to Dagget to lay it all out on the table without rambling about cookies and weasels and cheese steak sandwiches like I do

Thanks, Dagget. And yeah, here's to a nice resolution to the whole thing.

Now that I think about it though...did you guys e-mail Events prior to this event?

[Ninanna]

A couple of points here.

1. Events had no idea of what the little "event" was all about. You never clued us in to what you had in mind. So we had to go with it like we would with anything we encounter. Stay true to the characters involved. Not sure what "hints" you have been dropping or to who. Point being if you want Events to know about something... email us and let us know.

2. The legacies DID stay true to those characters. I mean what exactly would you have expected from Silverstone? It had nothing to do with what ever any ARK behind that character felt or didnt feel. Silverstone (and actually all the Legacies there) reacted as one would expect to the situation presented them. Silverstone saw the tower being infested by vermin. He removed the vermin.

From what you have stated here, it sounds like the outcome you wished for the event was successful. And the characters involved reacted true to their character.

It actually was rather interesting. And from my perspective seemed to have accomplished what you wanted.

[Dagget]

Early alerts:

========
November 29483 CoT meeting:

...

[Vicinity] Chrisax: I have heard of some movements about the inhuman way leets are treated in the new orbital club
[Vicinity] Nulion: smiles at Rhus, tongue slithering out, curling briefly at the tip
[Vicinity] Nulion: ....Yeah, I'd hearrrd about that.
[Vicinity] Chrisax: I'll look into that and investigate
[Vicinity] Rhus: chuckles
[Vicinity] Chrisax: it seems we could face some disorder
[Vicinity] Nulion: Think you can have sssomething forrr usss by next meeting?
[Vicinity] Chrisax: and, to be honest, many of us are shocked by the way leets have been turned into robotized slaves
[Vicinity] Chrisax: probably
[Vicinity] Chrisax: the strangest thing...
Chrisax hesitates
[Vicinity] Chrisax: well... it sounds a bit silly I know but
Chrisax hesitates again
[Vicinity] Silverstone: rolls his eyes and taps his fingers on his knee
[Vicinity] Rhus: I'd actually heard a few questions on getting some of those Barleets for city HQ's
[Vicinity] Rhus: says with a grin
[Vicinity] Chrisax: I heard that leets themselves could be... uh oh... well... unhappy... and oh nothing
[Vicinity] Nulion: ...Chrrrisss, I imagine Delusss would be grrreatly interrresssted in thisss.
[Vicinity] Chrisax: seems embarrassed
[Vicinity] Nulion: You might want to get in touch with herrr.
[Vicinity] Chrisax: yes maybe
Chrisax glances a second at some little shadow in a corner that quickly disapears
...


========
January 29484 CoT meeting:
...

Nulion: Not much hasss been happening lately that we all haven't been exposssed to forrr a long, long time. We'rrre ssstill worrrking on the leet prrroblem...
Nulion: ...but otherrr than that...*trails off*
Bubbacrush: What sort of... leet... problem?
Bubbacrush: what is problematic about it?
Dagget: well, that is something we are working on
Silverstone: Vermins, what kind of problem can that be
Bubbacrush curls his lips, somewhat.
Dagget: has to do with the Company operating the new orbital Station
Chrisax: I have a report that will be ready for next meeting about the leets situation
Nulion: The one up in The Grrrind. We ssshould have sssomething rrready about that by next month, though forrr now....
Delus raises an eyebrow
Bubbacrush: Oh, Cuggles.
Chrisax: I've been investigating a lot and...
Bubbacrush: Yeah, that is definitely a problem.
Silverstone: Dont tell me i came here to listen to leet problems
Dagget: no, Simon, you'll hear more about leets at our next meeting
Dagget: so you can plan to skip, if you like
Silverstone: Oh fantastic
Chrisax: well you could be surprised by my report next month simon
Chrisax: but it's too early to say
Dagget: however, on a different matter
Silverstone: ok
Delus: I would be very much interested in any reports about exploiting of the native life forms of Rubi-Ka.
Chrisax: I'll just remind you the words of Henry Radiman on OA hill whne Jobe scientists open the gate to SL...
Nulion: We'll have sssomething forrr you M'am, don't worrry...*smile*
...

========
February 29484 CoT meeting:
...

Dagget: now, I I had mentioned earlier, Chrisax was supposed to present some

material related to leets and the new orbital club, but that will just have to wait
Silverstone: and thanks for that
Nulion: snorts
...

========
March 29484 CoT meeting:
...

Chrisax: I have to apologize myself
Nulion grumbles, quietly
Chrisax: my investigations regarding some rumors about leets are taking more time than I thought
Chrisax: but I think i'll have some information in one month
Dagget: I'm sure interviewing leets is a time-consuming tack, Chris
Xeavier chuckles
Chrisax looks at dagget
Hayden laughs softly
Chrisax: yes yes... laugh... we'll see eventually
Sidereal raises an eyebrow.
...


========
Chris didn't attend the April Meeting, so the subject wasn't mentioned
It was mentioned in May and I'm still looking for that transcript.

[Nulion]

I think Nin meant something specific; a time, a date, a place. It's kinda hard to react based on something slipped into a conversation months in the past...although yeah, it had been talked about and mentioned here and there. I mean, I personally have trouble remembering what happened in last month's Council meeting, and I don't even have to worry about remembering details for a hundred other things spread across two servers.

Just saying Dagget, that...in this case, slipping hints in here and there just might not be enough.

There's a lesson to be learned here!

[Chrisax]

Maybe just drop it.

I would have much to say so better say little. (I didn't know that Nulion would take that to AO forums.)

Except I totally understand the episode in The Grind and although I regret things couldn't go as expected (many people looked interested though, so too bad), I agree it should have been handled differently. It's a clear thing to me. We underestimated the (happy) mess the Grind party would be.

As for the rest, we wanted to also offer the Sunday event to the Events team for AO birthday, and a short semi-OOC line in the end was planned to thank them for those years spent together. Hence the clues and no formal announcement.

A for myself "those years" are something like 7 years in the CoT, since it was rebuilt.

My personal belief, but I've been proven wrong, is that, in role-playing, when someone sees an obviously short scripted (as in "written") surprise action running from reliable and trusted people, no one should interfere with it in a significant manner. Everyone can of course play his/her character and stay in his/her character's line, but, at this very and short moment, only as a supporting role and let the story (which is never long) follow its path.

I'll talk to the 14 people that were kindly cooperating and that I want to thank here again.

As for myself, I've drawn the consequences.

[Pheats]

I would just like to mention a few things.

First of all, informing us of plans to do things, this is important, especially if your wanting to involve the legacys, and by informing us I mean a clear cut OOC email to events-feedback@ark.anarchy-online.com

I made a post stating how ideally these emails should be structured and is linked in the info at the top of the fourth wall.

With out this notice there is a good chance any arks involved will not know whats happening, you may have dropped subtle hints or set up a story for yourselves over a long time, but unless we're directly informed we generally wont know whats happening, we have 2 dimensions and many different things going on that can at any time resemble something someone else is doing or something that might be a story players are setting up but isn't, its not always easy to differentiate, so unless we are informed directly we generally dont take part in player events to play it safe (other than maybe fielding reports at meetings).

Secondly, running storylines.

Storyline's are deep complex things that take lots of work, anyone that's tried running one can attest to that, however there are a few things that can make it easier:

-first of all make it flexible, this means that should something happen that you weren't expecting (be it something IC or OOC, as you can never make sure everyone involved will actually be around) you can roll with it and adjust the storyline on the go.

-The characters control the story, the story does not control the character, when you set up a story unless you contact each an every person participating before hand and tell them what you want them to do or say your never going to be able to control what happens, and even if you do there is a good chance they wont want to do what you want them. Many characters have taken a lot of time and energy to set up, generally more than any individual story, as such people will always want to play their character how they want.

This means that what happens at any given moment in a story almost always be up to the people participating in it, you can of course make it more obvious and likely that your intended outcome will happen by how you run any given event but inevitably it will have to be the story that runs along with the participants not the participants running along the story.

This goes double so when you involve legacys and LTC's, they are not allowed to go out of character at all, ever. Legacys have a specific personality that they will (hopefully) never change, this means its unlikely for the angry man with the gun who see leets as vermin to do anything other than shoot vermin when they come near him and you should never expect otherwise. LTC's are a bit more flexible however it is up to the people that play them to decide whether they wish to change their characters slightly.

- Always inform people before hand where possible, this doesn't have to entail a full detail of the event planned and how you want people to go (as that's generally not good roleplay) but just letting them know something might happen at xx time so their not caught by surprised, this means they can get their heads in order and participate fully from the off without having to work out whats happening first, which can result in problems.

And finally, there is a line between metagaming/greifing and staying in character, you may feel characters are acting in a certain way just to disturb an event and ruin it, however they may just be playing it how their character would run, the way I tend to use to tell is a short list:

Did I tell the people before hand that this event was going to happen or did someone else?
Where they intended to be their at all in the first place?
Are they breaking their own character at all?

If you didn't tell them about the event, they weren't intended to be there and their breaking character, they are greifing.

If they are staying in character, chances are they are just trying to take part, at which point working with them would be best.

If they turn up mid event when you weren't expecting them to be there then their is a good chance they are greifing.

However if you approach them with the event, and they stay in their character its not because they want to distrust but because that's them in character joining in.


In all, I am sorry that your event did not go to plan, that your event didn't go how you wanted to was not intentionally on our part, and I am sorry things didn't work out.

However I do have to say your expectations of what would happen where a bit off, especially on Simons part, however if you inform us next time we can take measures to try and help the events go how you plan (Simon would still want to shoot leets but maybe another legacy could have stepped in and controlled him had we known what was happening).

Once again I am sorry things didn't work out and that your upset, I do hope you will try to continue the story however, it is always nice to see players doing their own storys more so when they want us to join in, I just ask you let us know things before hand so we can make sure we have time to deal with it amidst everything else we have to deal with.

[Nashedra]

I was absent yesterday so I can't say what happened and why, exactly.

I am really sorry though that you got so discouraged by what happened. I do remember some of the hints you gave during previous meetings. I also remember thinking "Chrisax will give a report about the Grind leets most probably, or send us an email to contact someone from the Grind management." As you can see, hints don't always help us understand your intentions. I also know from experience with the stories I run and help run that every time we give hints there is a very big chance of the players understanding them differently than we intended. Not saying that's wrong, but that's just the nature of giving hints. What I'm trying to say is: we did not understand what your intentions were before the meeting.

Please understand that legacy players are required to act strictly true to the character they're playing. I won't bore you with the means by which it is enforced but every legacy player is very well aware that they need to be true to their character at all times while they are online on their legacies. No slips allowed (though we're all just human so little glitches occasionally happen.)

I don't think it's absolutely necessary to contact us every time people want to do some player run event during a meeting. If you have a certain outcome in mind, however, and want to avoid things going the way you did not wish them to go it's best to drop us a line. Sometimes we won't be able to comply (for various reasons) but at least there wouldn't be any misunderstandings.

It's a shame you got discouraged. It must have been a lot of work rallying so many people for this event. I don't know what happened exactly or what was the plan, but from the other posts I understand the goal of the event was reached in some form. I hope you decide to continue the story after all.

Edit: looks like Pheats posted here while I was writing my reply.

[trousers]

First Rule of RP: Don't Involve the ARKs.
Second Rule of RP: If you Must Break Rule #1, You must Alert them to what you're doing.
Third Rule of RP: Assume they never got the E-mail (because that is what they will tell you)

Rules to live by. And lessons, I might add, most of us learned years ago.

[FoosballX]

First Rule of RP: Don't Involve the ARKs.
Second Rule of RP: If you Must Break Rule #1, You must Alert them to what you're doing.
Third Rule of RP: Assume they never got the E-mail (because that is what they will tell you)

Rules to live by. And lessons, I might add, most of us learned years ago.

Oh silly pantsman that was true back in the dark days, things have gotten better for all those that are not Omni-Pol.
Now it's more likely they'll get your email, have a meeting about it, then forget to get back to you (that's what they told me); however, it does seem Kintaii has opened up the lines of communication, so I'm sure this won't be a problem.
Besides Pheats got back to you that one time with a good April Fools joke.

All kidding aside I've found Events as of late to be pretty helpful and willing to be apart of player events and storylines. Providing it doesn't conflict with the over all storyline, and is in the scope of what they can do (eg. Not designing special rooms for said event, creating new PFs, ect. ect.).

The reality is, Events as much as they are players at the end of the day, they're really more DMs for the game. I know some people refuse to send them any kind of information, but if you would like them to react in a certain way, or come out with some STs for you. They need a heads up. I'm not saying you need to give them a detailed plot line with everything your planning, but an idea of what's going to happen is helpful.

And always remember when you make an assumption on how people are going to react, you run the risk of making an ass out of you and Mption, and I've talked with Mption and he really hates that.

[trousers]

Silverstone to Chrisax

[Lylith]

Zeroeth rule of everything: Don't be a drama queen and use your common sense.

[FoosballX]

Laughing too hard to come up with a good response. Trousers wins!