The Clan Lord Sentinel

News flast (at least to me):



(the following is from a very crowded conversation with Joe GM in jail, with non-relevent to this topic bits snipped)

folks in jail on the night of the Karma revolution wrote:


2/20/05 1:28:53a Joe GM says, "Anyway, about karma:"

2/20/05 1:29:01a Joe GM says, "I think it could be a useful tool."

2/20/05 1:29:09a Joe GM says, "It wasn't meant to be some IC RP thing."

2/20/05 1:29:14a Mjollnir asks, "it wasnt?"

2/20/05 1:29:23a Zen ponders, "it WASN'T?!?!?"

2/20/05 1:29:24a Joe GM says, "Neither was court."

2/20/05 1:29:43a Joe GM says, "If a substantial number of people want to dedicate themselves to making it useless, then it is."

2/20/05 1:30:08a Zen exclaims, "Who knew it wasn't intended IC?!"

2/20/05 1:30:36a Zen says, "And, frankly, Chum contributed greatly to the Court being used IC."

2/20/05 1:30:53a Zen says, "Chum vrs Atomical, et al."

I'm curious, especially amongst you long time clanners, how many of you knew that Karma and Court were intended as a way to send a message to an OOC annoying person?



I can sort of see Joe's point regarding karma (snerty Zen is going on and on about some new guitar he's bought and it's blowing your IC high, so you send him a bk to tell him so). To me, the person sending the BK is still acting IC, but that's open to interpretation.



However, a BK given to someone who has moved the portal to lava is clearly, clearly IC. Apparently, according to Joe, that is not the intended use for karma. This I didn't know.



As for the court system...don't get me started. The guy who created it used it for IC purposes. That's enough to tell me what he intended it for.



Bottom line, I think part of the problem with karma and court is that we don't have any community consensus about when and how to use it.



Ages ago, I sued Jackie for snoring in town center. (Zzzzzz, zzzzz). I have no problem with people SLEEPING in town, but her snoring would get annoying, both IC and OOC. Mostly IC. She slept through the trial, got a vindictive jury, and was seriously, OOC, pissed off at me. She reacted with a bunch of consecutive BKs.



I now have a hard time parsing whether my suit was appropriate by Joe's lights, and whether her response was appropriate. My action (and speech) in court was pretty clearly intended IC.



I'm very confused about what the game designer's intent is with these two tools. Discuss.

Well I had no idea it was for OOC purposes only, that just makes those stupid descriptions even more pointless and confusing.



Exile X has 3 good karma and 6 bad karma is OOC and descriptive

Exile X has a drop of good karma and a spoonful of bad karma is IC and confusing.



I would have agreed yes your snoring suit was IC but should still have been taken to court, she was being a public nuisence.

I'm asking for clarification too. I know that one of the uses that Joe always wanted with karma was a way for newcomers to know which person to avoid when interacting with people. So, a red named person is an ostracized person that should be avoided.



However, that seems both IC and OOC to me. I know that in the "old days", we mainly gave out BK to those people being OOC in town and over the sunstone. Still though, we give BK for IC reasons too, so maybe it's more of a grey area.



Maybe we can persuade to Joe to post here and give us his thoughts.

Eldon wrote:I know that one of the uses that Joe always wanted with karma was a way for newcomers to know which person to avoid when interacting with people. So, a red named person is an ostracized person that should be avoided.

If that is true then the next few newbies to step off the boat are going to be very very lonely.



(All the more reason why the karma system should at least be put back to how it was)

I heard years ago that court was intended to help solve OOC problems, so it's no surprise to me. As an OOC solution court is a complete failure and about the worst way an exile can deal with a problem person in the game: persons having OOC problems with others shouldn't have to try to find ways to solve those problems via more character interaction. That can make a situation worse than it is.



Additionally, the court's location in In-Character space sends a confusing message about its intended use. There's not a single NPC in the court that clarifies this. Zen, who's played Clan Lord longer than me, was not even aware that court was intended for OOC problems. I doubt most people, veteran or not, know about this intended use.

Slyph wrote:Additionally, the court's location in In-Character space sends a confusing message about its intended use. There's not a single NPC in the court that clarifies this. Zen, who's played Clan Lord longer than me, was not even aware that court was intended for OOC problems. I doubt most people, veteran or not, know about this intended use.

I always thought the court was for both IC & OOC disputes, but mainly IC really. Odd! 5years playing and still learning new things

I didn't say it was for OOC purposes only; only that it was _not_ for IC purposes only.



Of _course_ you can use it for role-playing. It's just OK to use it however you want, too. Some people say, "Hey, you can't use court to deal with a snert! That's not what it's for." _That's_ what gets me.



Personally, if someone makes me happy, I /thank 'em. If they annoy me, I /curse 'em. But everyone can feel free to use it however they want.



In my opinion, cursing is a pretty benign way to be able to let off steam.

Joedelta wrote:In my opinion, cursing is a pretty benign way to be able to let off steam.

benign? I don't think so, personally.



Tending to exert a beneficial influence; favorable:



ever seen the ominous "Okay, who the hell just fuckin' BKed me? I'm gonna fuckin' fuck you up ya lil wiener, yer going DOWN! I'm gonna come into your house at night and murder you with a CHAINSAW!"*



That doesn't sound benign.



*slightly dramatized

Joedelta wrote:I didn't say it was for OOC purposes only; only that it was _not_ for IC purposes only.



Of _course_ you can use it for role-playing. It's just OK to use it however you want, too. Some people say, "Hey, you can't use court to deal with a snert! That's not what it's for." _That's_ what gets me.



Personally, if someone makes me happy, I /thank 'em. If they annoy me, I /curse 'em. But everyone can feel free to use it however they want.



In my opinion, cursing is a pretty benign way to be able to let off steam.

heyas!



So what do ya do when say Malkor's RP his sneak self and manages to cheat ya out of your lunch money... OOC your please with the RP but IC your charaters upset. What do ya do BK or GK?



Karma should be for IC Ignore&Block for OOC Court can have uses both ways.



Zorton

Zorton asked:

What do ya do BK or GK?

In my opinion, yes. And do it for IC or OOC reasons.



(I'd just say "and/or" instead of "or")

I have lots of thoughts, but I'll be gone for a week in Callie. In a snowy non-WiFi place. <g>



Rock on, dudes. I'm sure you'll all say more intelligent things than I ever could. See you soon, Odes!

Ok, before we all go looking for defined uses for anything, let's take a step back. Court was implemented to some degree to try to deal with snertiness, but it took on IC flavors as well. Karma, dueling blades, heck tons of stuff in game has OOC and IC uses. Just because Joe or any other GM says what the initial intent might have been doesn't mean it's a rule that we all have to follow. That's what is so cool about CL: we the players make it what it is, more often than not.



Anyway, just wanted to throw that in the mix.

Snowy, non-Wifi place? Bleh, have fun.



As far as karma goes, I couldn't care less if I turned infared if it didn't affect sunstone wear and getting out of purgatory (espically annoying for healers who pendant).

I know that one of the uses that Joe always wanted with karma was a way for newcomers to know which person to avoid when interacting with people. So, a red named person is an ostracized person that should be avoided.

Definately understandable. But why have it affect what seem like non-related aspects of the game? If karma only reflected a community attitude towards a certian player, and didn't cause sunstones to break, etc, I'd be willing to bet we'd have a lot less people screaming about one bk over the sunstone.



I still think Noivad's karma 'toggle switch' for each character would be the best solution. One would either be good, bad, or neutral.



Take for instance if you were on a hunt, your router dropped, you d/c'd behind everyone and ended up trapping/killing the group. You got cursed because, obviously, you acted like an idiot and stood still in character, but out of character you had no control over the situation.



The toggle switch would allow those who were angry with you to change their mind and have good vibe towards you again.



This would work in character as well, since exiles could either have a neutral, good or bad opinion/feeling towards a character. When viewing a character's karma, you could see your attitude towards them.



\karma

You have a flagon of good karma and a drop of bad karma.



\karma Hex

Hex has a drop of good karma and a thimbleful of bad karma.

You currently hold Hex in high regard.



Enh...

Just throwing around ideas in the, uh, 3rd karma thread?

Perkusi wrote:Ok, before we all go looking for defined uses for anything, let's take a step back. Court was implemented to some degree to try to deal with snertiness, but it took on IC flavors as well.

Actually, court was implemented pre-rip, pre-commercial specifically in response to the complaints from players to DT to deal with the problem of in-game harassment, especially sexual. There was a push and a drive from a group of players, especially a female group of players, to have DT implement a policy and deal with snerts outside the realm of the game. But DT's position has always been to give players the tools to deal with player player issues themselves. While IC conflict may have been in mind as well, the driver was harassment, sexual and otherwise. The court and compla (now \report) were the tools given to players.



There should be plenty of commentary in the newgroup archives documenting this.



Fortunately, just as Joe predicted way back when, commercial release made the problem of harassment just about go away.



The problem with court as a solution to OOC issues is that the design and process of the court is IC and court cases are gameplay. By bringing certain kinds of cases to court, you risk legitiimizing the snert's actions as valid gameplay. It's still useful for some cases where you know an exile is out to simply harass everyone in town. Pretty much everyone who was in town will want to get rid of them and you can get verdict after verdict resulting in banishment and an unplayable character. But for the kind of issues that drove its development, sexual harassment, it really isn't an appropriate tool.





It works much better as an ic tool.

I was very sad to see the karma bombing protest last night. I wasn't a victim, but it seems that the "red conspiracy" was targeting some people who didn't think it was at all funny. I believe the point of DT's latest moves this week -- to accept older exiles back from the library for free, to make a Java client available, move rangers forward, and other things -- are intended to breathe new life into our town, something that we will all benefit from. I was so happy to learn of their hard work!



You can imagine how deeply saddened I was to hear the angered outcries of some newbies that I'd seen hunting in N field that evening when they found themselves with red name tags. Is it really the intention of some of Puddleby's oldest and most respected citizens to tell our young, "Welcome to Puddleby -- NOW GET LOST!" If so, I hope they'll just have that Drakesblood sign at the docks repainted so I'm not confused. I thought I was living in a town of welcoming, helpful citizens.



Elise