8/13/98-10/2/98 | 5/4/99-5/7/99 | 5/10/99-5/12/99 | 5/13/99-5/14/99 | 5/21/99-6/9/99 | 6/11/99-6/28/99 | 6/29/99-7/2/99 | NOW

Rant Archive Six, 6/11/99 to 6/28/99

6/28/99 - I read an excellent rant on Dundee's site (not the MoB Dundee, the RCGUO Dundee) about "roleplayers".  Damn if this doesn't bother me about as much as it seems to bother him.   After a boring weekend which consisted largely of replacing my car and wondering if it was worth it to ever attempt to run an RPG campaign ever again, this one just set me off.  I started typing one of my typical super-long boring Mu replies to his message board, when I realized SitePowerUp would probably cut it in half, so here it is.

The RP Nazi attitude is prevalent everywhere, even (and most disturbingly so) in the realm of pen and paper RPG's.  The problem lies in the term, "roleplaying".  It would  seem pretty simple to define... "playing a role".  But people add all sorts of nonsense to the definition based on their experiences, what they've read in some really terrible fantasy fan fiction, and their own delusions.   This is where the problem happens... people enter an "RPG", whether it's some tabletop thing, EQ, even UO, with an expectation that (1) it is a roleplaying game, and more importantly (2) it will fit perfectly with their idea of what roleplaying is.  These people wear the badge of "roleplayer" proudly, and gives anyone who even thinks about roleplaying a bad name.

The primary issue is tolerance.  I mean, come on, everyone needs to say something out of character once in a while, or maybe they just feel like it.  How hard is it to just answer someone when they ask, "Where can a level 3 gain some experience and a little money?"   Is everyone in the damn game world so incredibly shallow that they can't talk about something that's not listed on Stratics?  I suppose a hardcore RPer might insist that we create a whole new mythos to talk about when we're not thee-thouing each other to death.  ("Forsooth, didst thou catch the wandering minstrel performance of Kuchsan and Melota?  Har har, how jovial!" *the two RPers then enact a scene from the made-up show, which no one understands*)

As for "ruining the experience", this sort of claim usually comes from someone so self-centered and arrogantly righteous about his own view of what roleplaying ought to be that their play mainly consists of running around looking for "RP criminals".  There should be a harassment call button for when one of them starts badgering you about messing up their pretty mental picture.  These individuals should be locked up in tiny personal cells, where they can pretend the world is however they imagine it should be, without bothering everyone else.  Granted, there are some cases of people running around spouting nonsense in all caps, but you might as well treat them as insane people and just keep your distance.  This advice can also apply to the RP Nazis... ironic eh?

So then, how does one roleplay in an OCRPG without sucking completely or relying on some cartoony world-image that only a writer of bad swords and sorcery fiction would appreciate?  It's really simple, in my experience.  Just enter the world as your weakling, neophyte new character.  Give him a name, maybe a backstory which isn't too ridiculous (i.e., stay away from claims of a great destiny or such crap... leave that stuff for when you play Fallout), and just act like yourself.  Walk around town.  See if people are willing to talk to you.  Generally, people tend to react the best towards other players who speak in plain, legible English, with a minimum of unnecessary Olde English trappings.  As you progress, your character's story is shaped by his experiences.  (If you are really a conniving bastard, you can turn these experiences into dumb stories on a web page to gain a modicum of fame amongst your fellow players.)  As you meet different kinds of people, just accept that they play the way they play, and if it's too annoying for you, just don't play with them (or kill them, depending on the situaton and presence of a PK switch).   Before you know it, you are "roleplaying"... playing the role of your character, created by you and shaped by his encounters and interactions.  Easy, and no need to be a dick about some imaginary world you think everyone should conform to.

From here, it's surprisingly easy to play a character who is significantly different from yourself.  For example, on Catskills my low budget character experiment was a backwoods hick bowyer who spoke with a southern drawl.  "Ah gots no need fer these, erm, 'regs'... mebbe you kin use 'em.  Jus' make me one o' those hams er somethin'."  This guy was in character almost all the time, only slipping out when someone asked a question that required out of character language.  Big deal.  Cats Mu was well-liked by most of the RP-heavy Catskills population (probably partly because he was so obviously non-macroed... zzz).  The only people who took offense at his style of roleplaying were... you guessed it... RP Nazis.  They weren't even pissed at any OOC comments, they just thought the southern drawl got in the way of their precious, ever-fragile worldview.  Boo hoo.

Is it impossible to roleplay in an OCRPG?  No.  It is possible to roleplay as well as you can around a table with some friends?  No.  The tools are different, the environment less dependent on on's imagination, the interface with other people too clumsy.  Given these factors, though, you can still play your character to an extent which will not disturb the illusion of fantasy for most people (except for RP Nazis, who are hopeless), which will allow you to interact with a wide variety of people, and most of all, to have more fun.  And ultimately, this is what these games are supposed to be for.  If you think the ultimate goal of an OCRPG is to accumulate wealth and power so that you can "make a difference" in the game world, uh, you probably have serious problems.  I don't know about most of you, but I want to have a good time as often as possible.   If a limited approach to roleplaying will help me do it (and it has, in my experience), then I'm all for it.  And if some RP Nazis want to hassle everyone around me about the way they speak or ask questions, well, they're RUINING IT FOR EVERYONE!

6/17/99 - I received a missive regarding Musashi Versus the MAN in the wee wee hours of the 17th...

hey some word for u
Date:  Wed, 16 Jun 1999 22:13:34 -0700
From:  hvu3083@redshift.com
To:  howard@accessgate.net

if u havent forgoten i wasnt scared of nighthawk i told him right in his face i would ban him so dont u try to say some bad crap about me i bet u love they way i dress and cant afford to dress like me can u?

Since the sender did not tell me who they were by character name, I can only assume that this can be none other than Lancelot, Arthurian knight and opponent of the evil Nighthawk!  Thrilled to receive mail from such an illustrious pseudo-historical figure, I replied swiftly.

A message to the round table

Lancelot!  I bid thee fair welcome, good paladin!  I was a bit confused, as you neglected to indicate your character name in your missive, and your dialect is a bit strange, but fear not... your secret is safe with me!

As to the question of your courage, I am glad you chose to rectify any rumors about it.  A lesser man might take such recourse as to try and debate his cause against his opponent, overcoming with reason and logic.  Others, less well-spoken, might have challenged one's foe to single combat, allowing mettle to decide the victor and, thus, the more just cause.  However, YOU sir, have taken the path of the valiant "ban threat".  Surely only the most noble of cavaliers would take on the formidable challenge of hitting the GM call button and complaining about your enemy to the Red Gods, rather than sully your own hands with the responsibility of settling your dispute.  How heartened I am that you cleared this up.  I wouldn't want anyone to believe that you were craven, or that your arguments were so pathetically feeble that you might find a need to resolve them out of the game context.

As to your raiments, however, I can only assume that in your desire to modestly hide your champion's status, that you have disguised yourself as a common idiot to mislead the populace.  Let us examine the ensemble.  First, the garish emerald green doublet.  While not horrible on its own merit, and indeed quite the statement for the village jester on the go, the straps from the somewhat gamey, furniture-scratching studded leather sleeves tend to offset the doublet's "OK to drive" message.  Next, the leather cap, useful for hiding the shame of a steel plate in one's head but quite a faux pas in the world of high fashion, I fear.  The undyed plain skirt says to the critic that this is a girl who commonly needs replacement of such a garment, perhaps because of frequent saturation with urine, and thus a girl who cares not to spend a great deal of time color-coordinating.  The plain apron only serves to further this assessment, as the presence of such a disposable, absorbent accessory might serve to hide such an unfortunate accident for a few extra seconds, allowing a quick retreat to a changing-tent.  As the uniform of a noble knight such as yourself, the outfit is a dismal failure.  However, as the costume of a juvenile moron with a stuck caps lock key, it serves its purpose most admirably.

I would like to thank you once again for providing this opportunity to clear up any misunderstandings, and to make known the true nature of your bravery.  Please do not hesitate to call upon me again should the need arise to once again show the world what manner of person you are.  I bid thee well wishes in your continuing struggle against evil, and pray for the speedy cure of your speech affliction.

Your humble squire,

Musashi

Why is it I only get this sort of mail late at night?  Like I need to sleep any less than I already do.

6/14/99 - Late as usual, but a quick update for those of you who haven't been following the main page.  Shame on you!  Nighthawk got his account restored, although the tower was not replaced.  This happened almost immediately after a protest rally was held at Castle British on Baja.  A new story has been posted about this event.

A quick comment about the return of the quintessential red player, taken from my forum (which is always this sarcastic)

re: Nighthawk back, millions rejoice
by Man on the street posted 6/12/99 8:48:00 AM

Yeah, dood, it was like I was beginning not to be like afraid and stuff. I mean, like wow! A world without such a dangerous pk? No way man, like it'll never fly man. Thank god he's back. I was wondering who would like kick my ass and stuff.

This touching sentiment reflects my own thoughts... uh... kinda.  I just like NH.  The question is, will people see him now and quickly hit a macro key that says, "Hey, wait a minute, don't kill me... I was at your unbanning protest!"?  And after this happens, will he thank them over their corpses?  Actually, this might work the first couple times, until everyone starts doing it and he gets pissed.  Be one of the first to get killed by Nighthawk and use a lame excuse, and maybe you'll get some of your stuff back!  (This is not a guarantee.)

Thank god he can still give $ to Origin (NT)
by Max Longstreet posted 6/12/99 3:33:07 PM

Uhh... okay, we'll have a new protest to make Nighthawk a counselor so his account is free!  "Hail, I am counselor Nighthawk."  "SUP IM SUPAKILLA ADN I WNAT 2 PLACE TIHS HOUSE U BETTER DO SOEMTHIGN!!!111"  *You see:  a corpse of SUPAKILLA*

Nighthawk will probably be posting more on the story later tonight on Joy of Villainy.  For those people who are still wondering why players get on the side of such a dangerous PK, well there's not much sense in justifying motives, but the fact that so many people turned up, sent in emails to OSI, sent ICQ messages (every time something happened I got about 6 copies of the message from people forwarding it to me), and in general showed their support of Richard Rowe, the player who helped a lot of players and made a lot more laugh but was wronged by Origin, says something that goes beyond the stupid reputation system and murder counts.  And if you need further explanation, you probably have been playing way too much UO and need to get back in touch with real life and real people, which is at the core of this event.

Oh, and I supported him because he plugs my site sometimes.  8P

By the way, for those of you who missed the subtlety in the chronicle about the protest:  that was NOT tea all over Lancelot's pants.

6/11/99 - Late last night, I got out of a really annoying Starcraft game to find several ICQ messages waiting for me from J., Nighthawk, Brules, etc., all saying the same thing... Nighthawk of the Joy of Villainy got banned.  WTFMAN?  Nighthawk was a notorious PK on Baja, but he was also a highly respected player, ran Joy of Villainy extremely well after Warik stopped running it, and has even been featured in a story by an amazingly popular author!  8P  OK, this is strange enough, but then an hour after he is penalty boxed, his tower insta-decays?  This not only hoses him, but everyone else who was using the tower for storage and living quarters.  (I logged in my Baja ghost after I got the messages, and the area is picked clean.  I later found out that the stuff was rescued by Jesus H. Christ, NH's roommate.)  The full story is posted on Joy of Villainy, with some screenshots of GM Boo and Nighthawk in jail.

The technical reason for the banning was stated in this log:

           Your account was closed for the following:

           6/10/99 7:04:45 PM
           Character: Nighthawk (6575800) World: Baja
           This player was paged on for harassment. This player was caught saying:
           (Wed Jun 09 15:22:48 PDT 1999)(Nighthawk) (492052) (6575800): i love bashing jap healers
           This player was penalty-boxed pending further action.

Aha, one note in which he says "jap"!  Surely this is more offensive than, say, all the people I have ever seen saying "suP my nigga" in game, or characters with blatantly offensive names, or GM's with a hard-on for the banning function.  Yes, saying "jap" is certainly grounds for immediately hosing Nighthawk and everyone who lived in his tower.  Forget Ronald McDonald's banning email, which had about 10 notes on it about hacked stats, incessantly paging GM's to give him hair, and finally ASKING to be banned for 3rd party use.  (This was from about March, and unfortunately Ron lost his archives from that month, zzz.)  But I digress...

A short time earlier, Nighthawk had the following eloquent exchange with someone who claimed to be a counselor.

Date: Tue, 08 Jun 1999 21:13:26 -0700
From: Deb Mills usall@home.com
Subject: mwahahahahahahaha

Hail and well met friend,

I am an ultima online the second age player and I am a gm warrior a gm tailorer a gm mage a gm miner and a counciler thats the funny part I`m only 12 years old so I think that the people in mexico working as gm`s are to dam drunk and hung over to care about any of this shit but if you think that if someone is to yough to play then go bom yourself and bom is german for fuck ashlook

Here's a simple question for an obviously simple person :

Do you think I give a shit?

Date: Wed, 09 Jun 1999 16:39:12 -0700
From: Deb Mills usall@home.com
Subject: go to hell

ok you mother fucker I am a counciler on baja and I will have your accountr suspened for that

Now for those people who think that no one who types this badly could be a counselor, please keep in mind that even the best counselor I have ever heard of (the guy who helped Kagero and Clove place the keep on Hokuto) spoke in phrases like, "hmm i c" and "this good loc".  The fact that the phrase "I cannot help thee with that" is macroed to prevent misspellings may help to mask this pre-literate approach to service.

And as for GM Boo...

BTW, Stretch of 7 was also banned on Baja last night. He paged GM Boo when two non-english people were spamming him with "FUCKER" and "Your Mom costs $1". When the gm got there and saw Stretch ask "Is that supposed to be Jap humor?", BAM - he go byebye.

Is GM Boo even capable of reading the chat log that now automatically comes with a harassment call?  For that matter, are ANY GM's?  The current rumor is that GM Boo is of Japanese descent and gets very excited about the banning function.  For that matter, I am also of Japanese descent, and might be excited about an abusable function on my UO client.  I would ban all those whiny players who think the way to roleplay your way through life's problems was to call GM's to make the bad man go away.  Oh, and 12 year old wiseass counselor wannabes.  And GM Boo.  And that damn Datura.  Someone give me a god client fast!

The inconsistency of the response to these calls is really the problem.  For instance, we have this snippet from Suprdave DSS on the JoV message board discussion about banning...

I had a friend get banned because he said "Sup my nigga" to his RL friend in UO. On the reverse Side. I went on Napa at Britain Bank.  There was a guy there being a dick, and this was when some new harrassment stuf had gone in.  Well, I asked his to shut the fuck up. His response, FUCK YOU NIGGER  Spammed over and over FUCK YOU STUPID NIGGER BITCH

Well, of course I called a GM on his ass... Know what his response was?  "Turn your Obsenity filter on and put this person on Ignore"

Even this is more of a response I have ever seen from a GM.  It's amazing how UO has been overrun with harassment, exploitation, and just amazing amounts of bullshit for its entire existence and the GM's were nowhere to be seen, and now they suddenly make their presence known with acts ofdraconian power-mad stupidity.  You would think GM's had something better to do thank stalk around looking for players to ban based on flimsy premises on rules they enforce at their whim.  It's like the cops I used to see in Washington Square Park all the time harassing guys who were drinking beer in public while someone was shouting for help on the next block.

Personally I'm way against this banning, not just because I reflexively mistrust any GM-made decision as being ludicrously wrong on principle, but because unlike me, Nighthawk actually loves UO and helps a lot of players in it.  Why can't I be banned instead of a guy who actually likes to play?  Take me instead!  I don't even want my account!  Hmm, I should give my account to Nighthawk and see what he can do to make Mu a murderer.  My dream come true.

It seems a lot of people are against the banning as well.  Already it seems many, many emails are being sent off to the UO account administrators to reverse the banning, and several in-game protests are planned, including an LoD rage party over the weekened, and an "Unban Nighthawk" newbie parade Monday night.  I think it would be more fair to have the entire shard restored to Thursday's backup so Nighthawk can get the tower back.  In fact, this is how all OSI screwups should be handled.  Of course, that means they would have to restore the backup file for the first day of public release.  Even then, I bet the same mistakes would be made.  There are no limits to the ability of poor customer support to screw up a gaming experience, especially for those people who actually love the game despite its flaws.

Good luck Nighthawk.  You will be back somehow.