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Old 09-16-2002, 07:05 PM   #1
Terloch
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I'm curious as to what other admin have done to try to deal with an overflowing amount of OOC comments/etc on their respective sites.

We've had an OOC channel, which was removed due to rediculous spam.

We've had an osay local room command which was removed because of complete over-use.

We've had people preface gossip and other global comments, and other local things like say/yell with (ooc) and so on.

So what have you done, if anything to deal with the over-abundance of people wanting to be OOC and making OOC comments in general? Do you just let them? Do you ban it outright? Do you ignore it?
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Old 09-16-2002, 07:20 PM   #2
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In general, our players can be OOC if they want, but since we are an RP MUD, when they join a guild, as most players do, their guild administrator will restrict the amount of OOCness they are allowed. Some of the more serious and more difficult guilds are nearly IC all the time. Other than that, it is an honor system.
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Old 09-17-2002, 04:53 AM   #3
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What you also could do is to set up OOC rooms or areas (taverns etc...) and limit the listening to an OOC channel to those rooms.

No matter how you try to police that, people will want to ooc from time to time, even the most hardcore RPers. If you forbid it in the game, they will OOC while IC, or resort to external chatter software instead... and eventually leave.
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Old 09-17-2002, 07:42 AM   #4
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I'm not an Imm, but I've seen a few Muds and I'd have to say that the current Mud I'm on now, which is an RPI mud, has virtually no OOCing.

Is your Mud heavily based on RPing? If not then I don't think this should be a problem, but I'm assuming it is. On H&S muds, I've run away cause of the spamminess of global chats, so perhaps a way to combat it, is to have the default for global channels (except for a newbie one) set to off, so when new commers come, they won't be tempted by them.

And also have an OOC command that is restricted to the room only, this way people can OOC when it's neccessary but not abuse it.

Also, create a Message Board on your site or even a chatroom. If you can't create a message board then sign up for a freebie and link to it. This would allow people to get it out of their systems.

But just a question, why do you use global channel anyway? Any global (IMHO) is an OOC thing, unless you have something that makes sense for it within your setting, I wouldn't know I haven't played it. But in the game I'm in, there isn't ANY global channels.
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Old 09-17-2002, 10:33 AM   #5
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Yikes. Careful with message boards. On the game I play on, there is an extensive out of game message board. It serves in part to help with questions about mechanics, expected rp of races and guilds, questions from newbies, and non-game related chit-chat. But it also serves to create hostile, angry, unproductive conversations that the moderator eventually pulls. And unfortunately, too many players take their frustrations with others responses on the OOC boards into their characters IC actions. Message boards bring as much bad as they offer good.
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Old 09-18-2002, 01:03 AM   #6
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We've got a pretty active discussion board - to the point where we're moving it soon, heh, since it's cutting into game bandwidth.

We do try to keep OOC out of the game, since it's jarring to be playing and have someone yacking away OOCly about the episode of Buffy they just watched, but it's totally understandable that players (and staff) tend to form a community built around their common interest, and I think it's a good thing. I'm not so fond of people sharing information about plotlines, but we can't really police that sort of thing except inside the game.

We get some great contributions from players as a result of the community spirit, and it helps us get to know the players -- which is very important, since that's where our new staff members all come from.
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Old 09-18-2002, 02:27 AM   #7
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This is kind of a cool idea, have the ooc channels only work in certain rooms, so when they are in different parts of the world they can still be ooc with each other.
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Old 09-18-2002, 04:09 AM   #8
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Why not just make the OOC channel a toggle the morts and turn off or on? Someone whines about OOC bothering them, your response is turn it off. I prefer this to them taking it to AIM or some other instant messenger where I can't monitor what's happening.

We have OOC and it's specially colored to allow an at-a-glance knowledge that it's OOC and I find I typically tune out that one color unless contents warrant action. We're not rainbow so it's not a problem for the color.
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Old 09-18-2002, 05:26 AM   #9
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The problem we had is that after the ooc channel was taken out, people started to use the question/answer channel as their global ooc chat channel. I would be reluctant to toggle that off, because sometimes people do have actual questions they need help with. But there were times when it just got rediculously spammy.

I felt the same way about osay. No, I didn't want to sit around and listen to people carry on lengthy ooc conversations in the middle of the city square, but I also didn't want to miss when someone had a real question, or needed to clear up something that was going on, which they couldn't do ic. Though I suppose tells can be used instead of osay for most things.

I do believe that it's nice to have some form of ooc communication though. It can be a real help to players who are brand new to the game, and can also give people an outlet which is sometimes dearly needed. I think the key is just to not let ic and ooc lines cross.
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Old 09-18-2002, 08:57 AM   #10
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I hate OOC channels of any sort, but I also recognize a need for people to break character sometimes. Often it's to ask for syntax help, or to deal with someone who's new and has done (or is about to do) something REALLY out of genre or inappropriate. Sometimes it's just a need to get out of the heavy intense roleplay and goof around and relax with friends in an OOC manner.

Sometimes these things need immediate reaction rather than a post on the boards and waiting for a response, which may or may not ever come.

For this reason, I like how Inferno sets it up. No, I don't play there anymore, but I still love some of the systems they have and feel comfortable extolling those systems' virtues <g> So here's how they have it set up. Opinions welcome of course.

When you log in, you don't log in as your character. You log in as your UID (User Identification). So my UID was Ephemera, and the character on the Ephemera account was Nirani.

Now Ephemera is logged in, and exists *only* in a 10-room area called Ice9 Reality. In Reality there exists the OOC message boards, a post office for in-house mail, a conference room for OOC forums when admin needs/wants to discuss things with the player base (like major changes to the accounting system, or rollout of a new quest via an event that might take many hours to complete and they need to warn the players to arrange their personal schedules appropriately if they want to do so), and a few rooms where people can talk privately one-on-one in an OOC way (like a GM helping a newbie understand things, for example).

There's also the chargen entry and game entry in the "upstairs" area, and the character goes through one or the other and ends up in the game, either wherever they left it, or at the local "dropoff point" for new characters.

It's a physical separation of OOC, and it allows the RP to stay RP, while still giving people the opportunity to go OOC without disrupting the game in any way, shape, or form.
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Old 09-25-2002, 09:57 AM   #11
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Old 10-06-2002, 06:52 PM   #12
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Talking

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Old 10-07-2002, 10:13 AM   #13
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In the spirit of this threads...

I hope your OOC frustrations and dislike of long time rpers does not manifest itself ICly through your character when you do choose to rp.
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Old 10-07-2002, 01:58 PM   #14
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Question

We trust are players to keep the OOC and IC separate. Though some times I poke them and say should that be said here? : ) Me personally I love being hit with tells from the players. They got a question, personal problem, or what not I try to be there as much as I can to help them out. I think ooc channels are a needed thing. Some times people just want to log in and chat with they new friends they have made on the game.
Or just point things out, help others, give ideas ECT. My self I do my best to keep IC and OOC apart. But then again I am not any better then any of the other players and we all make mistakes.

Anyway that is my few ducats on that : )
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Old 10-08-2002, 01:17 PM   #15
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A MUD is a place to play. From that standpoint, folks will always need a way of venting and communicating. Out of character communication needs a place, but it needs to be meetered in such a was as to not infringe on the atmosphere of the rest of the world.

Personally, I hate OOC. My disdain comes not from someone asking about syntax, or telling a story about how their day at work went.....its the frustraitiion of folks who flip-flop and finkle-fart back and forth between IC and OOC when it makes little sense. The classic example is the player who brandishes weapons, dons colors, and charges into battle....gets beaten and whines to the world about game mechanics.

How do you keep a reasonable guide on you OOC?
You can code it....level restrictions for channels, mana costs for gossips, or special rooms that prohibit chatter.
You can police it with Immortal hall monitors who hand out detentions.
You can try and lead it. The important part here is that your immortals and guild leaders themselves refrain from contributing to the spam, and that they pro-actively usher those types of things into quiet places once they begin to cause problems.

~Mandrake
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Old 08-02-2012, 09:56 PM   #16
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Re: Dealing with OOC

We had this as an issue for a while, with most of the admin leaning towards trying to strangle it out in the hopes it'd go away. It doesn't seem to work.

We've recently introduced an OOC channel and relaxed some of the restrictions on it out-of-game, in the hope that it will cut down on the OOC chatter in-game. It seems to be doing fairly well (at least initially) to reduce the disruptive OOC chatter we tend to get between characters - those ones that hop back and forth. The channel is one that can be switched off, for those that don't like the constant flow of chatter - that way you have both sides covered, for those that don't like it, and those that do.

On the upside with the OOC, it also does a lot to add to the community feel... in the age of social media and communication we're in, people do want to socialise. I don't think it's something you can realistically stomp out without frustrating the playerbase, and cutting down on your sense of community
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Old 08-03-2012, 11:42 AM   #17
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Re: Dealing with OOC

A MUD is a virtual world.

OOC has no place within the MUD.

No exception.

Players who are unable to separate between IC and OOC are the ones you do not want to have playing the game anyway.
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Old 08-03-2012, 12:43 PM   #18
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Re: Dealing with OOC

Bad generalization.

A MUD is a community of players, all collectively playing a persistent game together. Not all MUDs are roleplay-required environments; some are entirely OOC and outright discourage acting like the "virtual world" is real, instead encouranging players to talk on channels and privately, out of character, for the puropse of working together or against each other at the game, or just gab about real life or other issues. On those MUDs, they'd tell you that geeks who insist on roleplaying are the ones you don't want playing the game.

Even in an intense roleplaying MUD, most admins want their players to be a friendly and connected community out of character. That's why most MUDs have forums and/or wikis, in addition to or as an alternative to in-game public and private forms of out of character communication. You want players who like the game, collectively and together, and like to discuss the game, or just get to chat and know each other outside of the game a little bit, so you know that there are real people out there you're actually roleplaying with.

Very, very few people are attracted to a completely isolated virtual world, with absolutely no sense of community and no means of out of character communication with anybody, where they just log in and disconnectedly RP with strangers. Hardly anybody gets off on their sense of principle and the pure integrity of a virtual environment, when by its very nature, that virtual environment is already unrealistic and limited due to the limitations of coding and building.
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Old 08-03-2012, 05:22 PM   #19
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Re: Dealing with OOC

Much agreed with Snowtroll. Our game has a global OOC channel, players have the option of switching it off & for any jerks there is a 'noooc' command that will prohibit them from joining in, followed by a ban if they are particularly spammy/troublesome. Over the course of the game running, I've never had to use either command apart from testing.

One of the most laudible traits our players have commented on is how easygoing we are with OOC chatter and Staff-to-player interaction.. it absolutely fosters a sense of community, from trivial hello/goodbyes to discussing and sharing certain ooc things, even those unrelated to the game. I've recieved multiple comments from players that 'it's nice to know the Staff is willing to talk and listen to us'. If it gets to be too much Staff/Admins will quiet things down but it's never been an impediment to the game. We are also IC/RP-intensive and it's nice to have that outlet.

A while back I pondered creating a in-room OOC command and decided against it because it might get too disruptive to the RP experience. Plus it's not like you can stop friends from chatting with IM clients, and as far as that goes, if they are not sharing IC information, I don't mind one bit.

I'd also like to point out, while a MUD may be a virtual world your players are not virtual people, and should be treated with the same respect and dignity as customers to a business. If a player has issues seperating OOC from IC, our MUD might not be the best fit, but I will gladly assist them in understanding the difference; when I started playing MUDs twelve or so years back, my first and favorite was RPI and I certainly didn't know better. But I learned, was taught by some excellent people, and persevered to the point that I've spent several fulfilling years working on my own RP game, and having a buttload of fun along the way, forging valuable friendships with people (some I've met and others I never have laid eyes on), and I would never trade it for the world or deprive a player by saying 'You don't understand this, so don't play here'.

Last edited by realmsofvalor : 08-03-2012 at 05:36 PM.
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Old 08-08-2012, 01:55 PM   #20
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Re: Dealing with OOC

IMHO, there is only one way to deal with OOC bleeding into your IC game world:

Warn and then ban.

The number of warnings you want to do is personal preference. If you want to try temporary bans before permanent, that is also personal preference.

You will find that you don't even have to ban that often as your community will gradually evolve to reflect your philosophy and then start to self enforce.
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