[ALL] OOC: You and the main storyline clans, departments and other groups

[Socialfly]

I felt like it was time for a review of this and a update with some things that have happened lately. This is a combination of the old post with new information



Lately there has been an increase of players taking the liberties of storyline clans, departments, legacys and other organizations, and using them as their own. I wanted to just clear up our official position on this, and a bit about how we will enforce it.

For a very long time we have given you a great amount of freedom to use (and sometimes abuse) the names of main storyline organizations and individuals. In the past this has been taken a bit too far with players claiming they were acting on behalf of the Sentinels or speaking in the name of the ICC Peacekeepers or an Omni-Tek Director. Unless they were given direct orders from Simon Silverstone or from a ICC Commander, this would never be the case (and seeing as we are responsible for playing those roles, I think we would remember if we had given such orders =) )

This is not to say you can not play a Sentinel or a Omni-Pol officer if that is how you want to role play your character. We are more than happy to see players getting involved in the storyline. But remember you can not speak for the Sentinels or for Omni-Pol as a whole.

As well in your role play you can not post false conversations or orders from Storyline leaders or clans. You do not speak for them, and can not put words in their mouths. Please remember that.

We have recently in the past couple years taken this one step further in your involvement through the Council of Truth and the Omni Affiliate Meetings, where clan members and omni's can align themselves with a clan or department of their choice. Again, this does not mean you can speak on behalf of the department or clan you have aligned with, but you are most welcome to role playing being affiliated with them.

There are a few exceptions to our endorsement of storyline groups affiliation. As an example: The Dust Brigade. Though I can fully understand why it would be tempting to roleplay a Dust Brigade member, they are not a group we recognize alignment with. The Dust Brigade have not declared themselves clan, nor neutral, nor Omni, therefore it makes it hard to allow any liberties with players to align with them. There is an essence of mystery with them that is intended by the storyline team.

If you as a player have a role playing org that is called Dust Brigade, you should also be aware that the real dust brigade would be just as inclined to choose you as a target, as they would choose anyone else. They would not endorse a copy cat group

Here is a list for reference

We will endorse the following as groups you can affiliate yourself and your org with as a member, not a leader of.

Clan

Sentinels
Knights of Avalon
Vanguards
New Dawn
Unionists
Terra Firma
Eco Warriors


Omni

Omni-Pol
Omni-AF
Omni-Trans
Omni-Reform
Omni-InternOps
Omni-Med
Omni-Engineering
Omni-R&D
Omni-Com

Neutral

ICC
Newland City Council
(Borealis City Council - due to the Omni take over there is no public council)
(Last Ditch City Council - as there have naver been any elections like in nlc, this council is currently not supported by us)
Newland Militia

The following are groups we do not endorse affiliation with (at this time. Subject to change)

The Dust Brigade
Sol Banking
Truspace Networks
JAME
Unicorns
Red Freedom
Borealis Freedom Fighters - the goal is just and everyone should endorse it, the actual BF2 are a bit more secretely

Remember: If your clan or org is named after a main storyline clan or org, it DOES NOT automatically imply you ARE or ARE IN CONTROL OF the main storyline clan or org.





Also I would like to have two points defined. As they are being rather abused (seriously) at the moment.


Meta-gaming:

The use of out-of-character knowledge in an in-character situation. A character played by someone metagaming, does not act in a way that reflects the character’s in-game experience and backstory. They may be acting on information known by the PLAYER not the CHARACTER.



Powergaming:

A player can be described as a powergamer if (s)he presumes or declares that his or her character’s action against another player character is successful without giving the other player character the freedom to act on his own prerogative. They may also be a player who tries to force others to participate in role-playing they don't want to engage in. For instance, a player who unilaterally describes his character as doing something with (or to) another character that would usually require the other to play along — such as having a fight — is considered to be powergaming.



cheers
The ARK Events Team

[Morghana]

There were character naming restrictions as well. If your character's nick was"Simon" You would NOT be able to be 'Commander "Simon" Silverstone' or something similar. I presume this has not changed?

It might also be good to have a list posted of what orginizations have affiliated with what groups (The Mockers affiliating with Vanguard for example), as well as a list of Orgs with names that imply affiliation. (Div 9 comes to mind for instance). I justthink the more information that is out there, the less chance for abuse there is.

[Nulion]

There already is a list like that you know, at www.counciloftruth.org It's not something I'd ask ARK to keep track of, as it's always fluctuating, orgs changing here and there, it'd be so hard to keep track of for them. So we do it instead

As for Omni, go to www.omni-tek.org

[Legaron]

I think you might wanna add Tempus Coma to that list social

[boltgun]

Glad to see some neutrals groups to affiliate with.
What I'm curious is that if the JAME isn't for affiliation, can a neutral org roleplay a group of jobe scientists in any form ?

[Emaralisha]

It would be nice to be part of the storyline, and to a small extent i have been, but those who have played Simon Silverstone and others in CoT know my involvment, but i have never made it a major thing, it does make for some nice little Role Playing, particularly my focus on somethings mainly the Unicorns.

[Devdas]

<Bump>

Please keep in mind that making up false reports, conversations, events, orders, stuff including
legacy leaders (ie Eva Pourais, Tarkhan Zora, Simon Silverstone, Alan Jacobi, Zephrem King, ...)
Main Departments / Clans (ie Omni-Admin, Omni-Trans, Omni-Prime, Newland City Militia, Sentinels, Knights, Unionists, ...)
or other Storyline relevant groupings will be ignored from our side, if you are lucky.

If you are unlucky...
Let me tell you a little story about someone that fell to the illusion to be an important part of the dustbrigade.
One sunny day someone of the real dustbrigade happened to hear about this.
I 'll leave the details to your imagination.


Oh, and while I 'm bumping this post, let me please also point out that making up new technology,
breeds, beings and stuff is not helpful and tends to lower the overall experience for your fellow roleplayers.
(Exception granted to R.U.R. since there stuff doesn't work anyways.)
Toying around with existing stuff and things that make sense when based on current lore and logic is perfectly fine.

[playboyfixer]

Originally Posted by Devdas If you are unlucky... Let me tell you a little story about someone that fell to the illusion to be an important part of the dustbrigade. One sunny day someone of the real dustbrigade happened to hear about this. I 'll leave the details to your imagination.

in my imagination it involves 3 rubber bands, one of ninanna's teddybears, a merry-go-round, a bucket of water and an unicorn

Toying around with existing stuff and things that make sense when based on current lore and logic is perfectly fine.

including being creative with existing stuff? , or above creative even

[System_Crush]

What about the NLF, I know a plane crashed on them, but does that mean they are erased from existence now?
Last I heard 2 or 3 Nanomage Liberation Frontsmen lived to terrorize another day.

Personally I think they represent a side of the neutrals the other neuter orgs don;t as well as my interests as a nanomage.
I think they should definatly be in the list.

[playboyfixer]

the NLF is a player org, the list is ARK-long term character orgs

[Kotts]

NLF was player made, not ARK.

The ones the craft hit are still alive... ish... But they are not in the NLF anymore.
There are a few left, though dunno what those are up to. If you want an update you should contact them.

[Tuxcedo]

could be me, but in two years i have never ever seen Borealis City Council
nor Last Ditch City Council. were they before my time?

[boltgun]

Originally Posted by Chaupin could be me, but in two years i have never ever seen Borealis City Council nor Last Ditch City Council. were they before my time?

Yea they were planned, the Borealis elections even started but FC sent Omni Pol and ended it.

Imo JAME have some potential as an affiliation, SL can bring some interesting stories.

[playboyfixer]

but in what council? the Board of Directors, Council of Truth, Neutral Councils?

[Keldros]

Originally Posted by Boltgun SL can bring some interesting stories.

yeah, but in 4 years we have yet to see pumpkinheads in SL, even though their heads are impaled on signposts and littering the fields of elysium...

[boltgun]

Originally Posted by playboyfixer but in what council? the Board of Directors, Council of Truth, Neutral Councils?

Board director of the neutral council of truth ?

Nvm, I'm ill today. :c

[Dagget]

Originally Posted by Devdas If you are unlucky... Let me tell you a little story about someone that fell to the illusion to be an important part of the dustbrigade. One sunny day someone of the real dustbrigade happened to hear about this. I 'll leave the details to your imagination.

I think she actually liked the attention, heh.

[Trousers]

Can we get some clarification?

Originally Posted by Devdas <Bump> Please keep in mind that making up false reports, conversations, events, orders, stuff including legacy leaders (ie Eva Pourais, Tarkhan Zora, Simon Silverstone, Alan Jacobi, Zephrem King, ...) Main Departments / Clans (ie Omni-Admin, Omni-Trans, Omni-Prime, Newland City Militia, Sentinels, Knights, Unionists, ...) or other Storyline relevant groupings will be ignored from our side, if you are lucky.

Where exactly are the lines drawn? The OAM when it started two years ago use to issue assignments to players and organizations and gave them something to do. Now-a-days, that doesn’t occur. Some of us, like Omni-Trans, have been RolePlaying our Organizations since before the OAM existed.

Over the last two months, since phase front was declared the name of the new bikes, Omni-Trans has been RolePlaying that we have been receiving shipments of Bikes and Boards from Phasefront and holding them in warehouses to ensure that they did not get released prior to the street date (17.6 patch). Following the patch we reported that Phasefront received 98% of the cargo on time and within the range of our import contracts with them. Following this report we get this post.

Is there an issue with what we (Omni-Trans) is doing? If so, what should RolePlaying organizations do if we’re not allowed to involve our Legacy Department at all, and we get no direction/orders from our Legacy Departments when/if our Legacy Leaders are on?

[copperneedle]

((Sadly the FC office xerox machine has ran out of ink a few years ago. That is why we never get memos, and scraps of paper with penciled suggestions/ requests are just not professional enough to be replied.))

RPing in AO has become fairly one sided stories... narrations of a characters own events. I think there is a lack of desire to request events from ARK/FC because too many have been vetoed in the past. It's discouraging to initiate an event or a situation/ plot/ reaction to something in the story only to have it crumble in ashes due to "anti-commonsense". It hurts when something big happens in the storyline and you bring up a common reaction to an event that could easily trigger smaller independent events only to see absolutely nothing happen or worse, your concept acknowledged but ignored.

-signed "Still curious why omni wanted the dish in Borealis"
(even though we'll never get that answer. "what if:" Spain invades Sweden to secure a harbor, WTB Sweden never asking why. PST)

[playboyfixer]

i told an ark that too mostly ppl don't bother emailing events to get ARK involvement with rp events they start up, cause you keep getting stuff back about not consistent with the "tighter than a thong on a trox-storyline rules" (don't ask me why i took that analogy, i don't wanna know myself ), or as u said it doesn't go to the "common sense-rules", aka: mostly when people wanna start an event with ARK involvement it is declined, or will have to be cut in so many times it looks more like a puzzel

i get told i'm one of the most pro-active RPers on RK1 (yes, even though i make errors too) but i already 'learned' too not to count on help from events department for events (same as i heard putting a story up through editor news can take months, so i ask pols to put up stories on buzz as waiting months for a story to come out makes it redundant old news)

also, i think we should get more player intervention on set storyline changes, like the unionists taking over 4 holes and omni-tek invading borealis:

borealis case: we could get a system message from borealis saying omni-tek's invading, and then players can come help invade/defend borealis with ARK troops

4 holes case: omni-tek gets a message 4 holes is under attack, clans get a message from some person at oa hill or so saying we're attacking 4 holes and help is always welcome or so, then people from omni go help defend, clanners go help attack, neuts can sit on the metal net fences (or help any side they want).

then due to the obvious size of troops on both side (in borealis omni tek forces would be superior, better quipped and all, on 4 holes clan forces would be superior) we start winning or losing, and the ARK troops boss or so tells us they pretty much got it secured, and we can go enjoy our victory while they flush out the last remaining troops, then the next day we get a downtime, and after it voila, OT invaded bore & unionists invaded 4 holes and both won.

that's my 2 creds though