[Trexmaster]

For a long time now, I've felt myself drifting further and further away from the majority of the community. What I see as silly or immersion breaking, they welcome with open arms and take genuine joy in doing. Some of my issues I've taken up with the appropriate parties, but confronting -everyone- about how they play the game would likely just be seen as hostile, so I've left it alone for the most part, until now.

I would point to the 'funny quotes' thread, but it seems most of the images that would be relevant to my case are dead now. Instead, I'll provide a few text based samples of what I'm talking about. Yes, these are all real examples. I've censored names.


EXAMPLE A: Taking Game Mechanics Literally.

Person 1 says "Think they commonly go by Raijin."
Person 1 says "And then the enhancement--uhhh...I'unno what it's called. But apparently it hits even harder when you hit weak sots. Or some fancy shit like that."
Person 2 says "Harder when you hit weak spots....Vorpal? "
Person 1 says "--Yeeeah, that's it."
Person 1 says "Then it's made outa' that material that makes it a good uh, castin' tool."
Person 3 says "...Conduiz."
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Person A says "Naturally the one that seems 'strongest' is often the most basic and tried techniques."
Person B says "You mean the dark magicians?"
Person A says "Practioners of dark magic and pain specificly yes."
Person A says "Channeling pain, hatred and anger. Extremely effective."
Person B chuckles. "Yeah, those tend to be a pain. I just know a little bit of dark magic and fulgurmancy, but the rest... I just kinda suck at."
Person A says "Yet with how often the tactic is utilized, becomes predictable."
Person B says "Have you gotten used to it in a way that helps you?"
Person A says "Of course. But it will do me no good in 'true' battles."
Person B says "-- You mean how in a 'real' battle the opponent might do something entirely different?"
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Person A says "I've gotten to the point in my cooking training where somehow... for some reason... my general lack thereof of physical ability is somehow hindering my advancement in the culinary arts."
Person A says "Don't ask me how, I just know that's how it is."
Local OOC Person B: I really hate people who take game mechanics literally
Local OOC Person A: Oh we are probably not gonna get along that well then.

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Person 1 says "Divine Shower?"
Person 2 says "Yep."
Person 1 says "Quite the Invocation."
Person 2 says "Unfortunate that there's a huggesoan spell that does it better."
Person 3 says "I promised not to use dark magic."
Person 1 says "It is not for him.... I ask he not learn it."
Person 1 has a serious tone to his voice....
Person 1 says "Are you referring to Wretched Oil?"
Person 3 says "I-I have a idea..."
Person 1 says "Yes.....?"
Person 3 says "Healers in the back use that spell rescue and then Mages use Blink. to get out of there."
Person 1 says "Yes. I mean out of combat though..."

Referring to game mechanics in character verbatim, or so closely you might as well be. This has become a commonly accepted thing with the majority of the community, as far as I can tell. It's fine if everyone's on the same page, but it can become an issue when suddenly a player is applying game mechanic logic to another person's character who -isn't- using such logic. It stifles creativity.

Personally I think this should be kept to a minimum. Discussion about the meta ICly shouldn't even be done at all, it's only really understandable if your character is standing in the arena all day doing nothing but sparri--oh, wait. (this is a joke). Seriously though. This also applies to suddenly gaining understanding of things like Lore Question thread answers ICly (without proper IC logic behind why they'd know that), or ICly discussing update changes (things like new areas are understandable, new weapons are iffy, balance changes should really not be discussed IC). I don't have relevant examples for these two points, but I've personally witnessed it.


EXAMPLE B: Inserting OOC references into IC.

Person A says "How old 're ya?"
Person B she's su-yung.
Person C waves idly at the Shaitan.
Person A ikr
Local OOC Person Su-Yung: jesus christ i almost spat out my drink
Person A says "... Guess you could say."
Person A says "You're Su-Yung."
Person Su-Yung says "...What?"
Person Su-Yung says "Yes, that's my surname."
Person A says "Otherworldly puns, don't mind me."
Person Su-Yung stares blankly.
Person C what's this, stupid jokes make her laugh.
Person A says ".. See? She gets it."
Person A says "I mea-- oh, I'm sorry."
Local OOC Person Su-Yung: Can we ban Person A for stealing a joke from OOC? This is permaban material
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Person 1 says "I mean, I remember reading this series once... actually no wait I'm currently following it. Basic premise is, there are these two teens, one male, one female. They're both in the student council for this school for prestigious people and are both sorta geniuses that like each other. Thing is, they're oblivious to that fact, and because of the hyper competative nature of their life style, they both share a mutual belief that whoever confesses first is essentially relegated to a non-controlling roll in the relationship."
Person 1 says "So the entire series is just about these two trying to play intense high level mind games in otherwise average day to day situations to try and get the other to confess first."

Incidents like this happen every so often, but it's aggravating every time I see it. The Fourth Wall has suffered too much abuse. Please don't break it more than you have to. A cheap joke every now and then with friends is fine, but disrupting the public RP scene with things like this will throw people right out of the pool and make it very difficult to regain their immersion. I never saw Person Su-Yung ever again after this, so. A bit disheartening.

And it should go without saying, for the love of all that's holy, don't reference real life media, or anything from real life that doesn't translate into SL2 at all by lore.

EXAMPLE C: Ridiculous GM Events.

A duckneck neck extends out of the sky, going down to grab a sandwich with its duck-teeth. "Weh." It then extends its neck back into the sky.

To give this context, this was a GM Narrate broadcasted into Cellsvich. I can't really censor who did it, but I won't name names anyways.

I'd provide more examples, but one of the ones I was looking for is missing at the moment, if it even exists. There's been more than one, you'll just have to take my word on it. And no it's not just involving Ducknecks.

Whether one thinks "ha, this is funny, I like it" or "I find this to be immersion breaking and ridiculous" has been a dividing line between the community, where thus far the former is seems to either far surpass or be far louder than the latter. I fall into the latter--I believe that while it is understandable that GM's have creative license to do as they please with the setting bar some major plot points, I find cases like this to be questionable.

Where do we draw the line with what GM's are allowed to introduce into the game? It's upsetting that I as a player am forced to either ignore the public entirely, or accept the fact that this is canon. Before I go on further, I want to point out this isn't entirely about Ducknecks. They're just the prime example and what most of the community will recognize /especially/ since now they're included in the Pet Kit.

Not really much to be done if the majority supports it, but if anyone else shares similar views about 'goofy' GM injected events, now's the time to share your feelings. (or if you love them that's okay too).



Ultimately, it all seems to boil down to there being two groups of people. One side that embraces fourth-wall breaking humor and RP or are simply neutral/accepting of it, and another that detests it entirely. This thread is to bring this issue to light, because it's been fairly obvious to me that the community has had a silent divide over this. I've been content until now to simply let people have their fun, but I didn't want to let this stew any longer.

Do we try to reach a compromise? Do we tell the minority 'suck it up and deal with it'? I personally think it's impossible to please everyone, but some kind of compromise where the public RP isn't as prone to turning away potential players or attracting less-than-savory ones would be nice.

At the very least, word on how tolerable the first two examples should be--should it be expected to take mechanics at face value? Should the Fourth Wall be liberally broken at every opportunity? A word from the GM team or Dev himself would be nice, otherwise this is a topic for debate.