It’s 10:40 at night as of typing this bit and I am typing on my phone - forgive me if I am big dumb at stuff. Since I joined the server, I have noticed something that I believe to be quite common; keeping OOC information secret. Now I understand why people do this, the reaction from people when they find out some cool thing that nobody knew about until they discovered it feels amazing - for everyone involved. While fun, there are a few issues that I am finding with it which leads me to believe that it is better suited for smaller groups (Like in D&D) over a large server. All the issues listed are personal views and may just be a thing limited to myself. Issue 1 The first issue is a general feeling of lostness when it comes to the lore. Take Garlen for example, upon joining - all I knew was that it was a foresty planet with a bar and everyone hung out there. I had no idea about the rich lore that it has (and I still don’t really), that could be through personal failure to research properly but it was a problem for me nonetheless. Knowing nothing about the planet took away from the cool factor heavily. After exploring it OOC, I had more of a reaction of “This eye place is nice.” over “Wow. This is the place where all that Ocassus stuff happened.” while that example was phrased poorly I think it got the point across - that being: without knowing the lore, cool places are just scenery. Another example is purgatory and the undercrypyt, I know basically nothing about it except that purgatory is “hyper-American” or something like that (what does that mean?) and that the undercrypt is a spooky undead place straight from a video game like Diablo - with genie arrows that everyone wants. And it kinda feels like everyone knows what the undercrypt and purgatory is except you, and you have to scroll through old nexus posts to even have an inkling of what they are on about because they’re not allowed to tell you. Issue 2 I find that keeping information secret can also stifle creativity, you have all these cool concepts that you want to try out but they’re all shallow because you have no idea about any of the stuff that they stem from. The big example I shall use is psions (also in the next issue). Say you want to play a psion, there’s not really that much information on what they can do - so you don’t really have an idea on what you want to do with your psion and the only way to get that information is for making an app (for a half-baked character concept) and having it be approved. I got lucky with Lorette because I had put off her app grading until after I got another psion’s app graded - since I knew the info, I knew what I wanted to do with her. Pink has also been an awesome coach and I am grateful for that. But you can see the dilemma for a new played who knows nothing about the lore. Another example would be subhumans, anyone can play one without an app - but information on their main origin planet (Purgatory) is severely limited. Therefore leading to confusion all around. Issue 3 The third issue is on miscommunication and misunderstanding, I will also use Psions. A big problem with limited information is that there’s an uncertainty to what characters can do. It’s why I am reluctant to bring Lorette into CRP, the opposition might not know what she can actually do and sometimes I imagine I won’t either - which could lead to an OOC argument on her limitations (not that I am the argumentative type, this is all theoretical) which leads to a whole kafuffle. While I understand that all Psions are personal and differ greatly from each other, it would help if people knew more about the branches of Psionics over just “telekinetics manipulate matter an empaths sense stuff” - which would provide a smoother experience for all involved. Say Lorette did get in a fight, there’s no mention of what her branch of telekinesis does; which if I wanted to, I could abuse and lie about. And I can’t even tell them what it does because information on Psionics is kept under tight wraps. I don’t even know who the other psions are OOC, which doesn’t help with the psionic ability to sense the presence of anonaly. Another CRP (I focus on CRP because that’s where most misunderstandings happen in my experience) issue would be Qarins, one moment you’re fighting some fancy rich guy and the next you’ve got a buff ghost chasing you around. Now you don’t know anything about this because it’s kept secret and so you call bs, they tell you that they are actually correct and you just have to take their word for it. I do not think that everyone is going to abuse a lack of knowledge on another player’s part, but you can see how all this would be a little bit scary for that person. Issue 4 Fear of missing out and fear of messing up. When everyone knows about this one thing except you. It’s like having an invitation to a party but you don’t know the dress code. You’ve got to try and figure out what the dress code is all by yourself and the clues are abstract. Now nobody will tell you the dress code for fear of upsetting the host and you just don’t feel like you will get it right. And so you don’t go to the party, but then what about all the fun stuff there? You’ll miss out. And then you will be the guy sat in a bar with no progress because everyone is going to the party and making cool connections and getting fun stuff. Kind of exaggerated and it comes off as salty (I’m not) but you get the point. Of course people will always progress, it’s just to paint a picture of what it can feel like Issue 5 A divided playerbase, those who know and those who don’t. Those who know stuff can’t talk about it to those who don’t which keeps them out of that fraction that do know about it until someone is free to GM that specific event that gives the knowledge. My personal experience RP is there and you don’t need all the info to have fun, but it can help. I personally work on a “tell me the whole menu and then I’ll order” system over a “I want to order this, tell me about it” system if that makes sense, so a “need-to-know basis” system doesn’t work for me too well. I am having fun doing RP on GC but sometimes stuff like this is frustrating. I am also having fun discovering mysteries about anomaly both IC and OOC, but I don’t think it’s fun if I am unable to tell anyone about big discoveries I make, forcing them to also do a bunch of work IC just to know a bit of lore that is potentially irrelevant to them (but I will comply and keep quiet about stuff if told to). End Note: I do not intend to be vindictive to anyone here, you’re all lovely people. If I come across as a dick, I apologise.
best way to resolve all your points and get involved is make a character that knows absolute jack all and is learning about things when time goes on, and then start making characters who use that lore. as it stands, GC is INCREDIBLY not friendly towards newbies, because of the mass of lore that was written for it (it's six years old for crying out loud), but all of the informations can be easily learned ICly. make a guy that asks a lot of questions. make a guy who asks for many things. ask staff, other members, let them explain everything for you. it's virtually impossible to make a character who knows absolutely everything when you joined the server, what, two months ago? i've been around this place for almost two years now, bud, and i'm going to tell you- i still don't know half the things about gc, and what it has to offer. instead of using existing lore and using solely it to my own schemes and characters, well, i simply make my own history, my own settings, my own plots and lore of things that might prove useful for character making. tl;dr gc is hard because it's old, and the only way to learn about it is to get through the stages of confusion. dont expect to be a loremaster in less than a week.
Basically what Pankruk said, with a few caveats: The server's been around for 6 or so years(?) and obviously we've had some rocky times. Those rocky times include the forums being revamped several times, completely, and losing damn near everything as far as lore goes, and the community collectively shitting itself, and old staff deleting everything, and time skips that were widely viewed negatively, resulting in a lot of lore being lost, deleted and on top of that, just forgotten. We have a lot of things that exist in the setting right now with established lore, that we just don't have codexes on anymore, because they were lost in one way or another. And it's no fault of anybody here specifically, but it does come to the detriment of newer players hoping to get acclimated with the setting. We're trying though. It's been a long time since something awful like that happened but the effects of them happening are still here. I do want to state though that psionics, while it's been around a while in various states (which have varied for the above reasons among others), is for the most part new with its revamp. We're still working on it and need to touch it up a bit to make it more concise and easy to understand while still being able to surprise people by giving them new developments through RP (hence keeping some things hush), among all the other things we need to work on. We're always finding new stuff as we dig around our forums, RP more and come up with questions we used to have answers to but don't anymore, that we need to fix. Progress is just kind of slow. It's difficult to summarize 6+ years of lore made primarily through RP from so long ago, before Discord was a thing and after several big shifts in the community. We're sorry it's not exactly new player friendly. It's a difficult fix. If you have any questions though, please do DM me or another staff member for help. I promise you we're trying to fix this issue.
These are super good points, and I'm glad I've been a help with the psionics stuff. The psionics lore is definitely the worst offender with this imo, and I want to change it. Secrecy is still important but there are better ways to make sure players know which powers are "on the menu" than just making a staff member list them in DMs every time a player approaches them! Garlen, Undercrypt, Purgatory and so on really do need public codexes. The biggest reason they don't already is a lack of organization, and in Garlen's case, lack of motivation to write one. I actually had this idea for Archie, my 17 year old floran character, to make an IC "guide to the fringe" blog that would help newish players like you know what's going on in the setting without having to ask. I might go forward with it now since you brought up the topic (which didn't come off as rude at all). You've done a great job adapting to the community, by the way, and going out of your way to learn the lore. Thanks for sticking around! Part of this problem comes from the fact that the community is OLD, I think, and people make new things a lot, so the lore is extremely complex because it's been developing for years. I don't think the problem you've presented here can ever be fully fixed for that reason, but at the very least we can try to minimize it as much as possible.
Yeah, I get all that. And I don’t expect nor want to be a Loremaster within a week. I don’t think that characters that know everything are a good thing either. I do not want one whatsoever, I just want to know the information OOC so that I can create a character that I know I actually care about because I know what’s on offer. I don’t want to have to make a bunch of characters that I care little for and don’t enjoy playing so that I can make one that I do care about and do enjoy playing. I’m perfectly aware that I don’t need all the information to have fun with RP, but for me, it helps me make something I can have fun RP with. I believe that there certainly should be things that are kept secret, especially with stuff like Purgatory - but I think it is a step too far when the only thing I can really find about it is “hyper-America” The approach of “I’ll just make my own history and stuff” adds even more unneeded things that newer players have to learn. But eh, all personal views. Edit: Didn’t get the other replies after Pankruk, too tired to properly respond or comprehend rn, will later.
Wait, there was something I forgot to address in my first post, hold on. You're absolutely allowed to tell people about your discoveries IC and OOC. The only exception to this is, to a very limited extent, talking about psionics OOC. Everything you discover IC, you are allowed to share with other characters ICly. Nothing is stopping your character from talking about their discoveries, or even publishing papers or writing posts online. In fact, it's encouraged. Go wild. Stuff in the UC and purgatory are not secret either, though the GMs might not want to spoil future undercrypt plot points or explain how a creature works if they plan on using its mystery factor in an event later. I have no idea why anybody would tell you that they "can't" tell you about purgatory– information about purgatory is not secretive, it's common knowledge. If someone tries to tell you otherwise, they're wrong.
Gonna slip in my own response in here. Recently Staff has been working on a lot of things to make the experience for newer players more enjoyable and streamlined, since we're coming out of a period where we'd rarely have a new player, whereas now they're pretty frequent. Cool, the community is growing, but all of our community is built without you guys in mind. In regards to Purgatory and the Undercrypt - the reason for the lack of information on it is from the forum change and just the fact that they're old. I'll maybe start working on a public version of the Undercrypt codex while @WowGain makes the Purgatory codex. As for Garlen, we've mostly avoided writing a Codex for it because its meant to be discovered ICly - which is why we're probably going to end up writing an "IC" codex for it written by someone's character. As for what I'm personally working on, that would be getting the Undercrypt codex out as I mentioned, probably helping out with some Garlen stuff and continuing the Garlen and Occasus things I've been working on as well as the Ruin plotline, and technical things like an automated whitelisting process with our discord bot. That being said, it takes people like you to actually talk about this kind of stuff in order for Staff to work on fixing it, so thanks.
Oh. I was under the impression that I wasn’t allowed. Probably just stemmed from Psionic rules being misunderstood. And the UC thing was stemming from a response I got in the disc asking about the lack of information on the UC which was along the lines of “That is intentional, it’s on a need to know basis.” so it’s all just a misunderstanding. Btw, that blog idea sounds awesome.
There's a few issues with the lore in general other than just- 'Servers old'. The forum doesn't have 'every' tiny detail on it sure, but there's also not a lot of information on other things as well. Like OOC articles would be nice about Garlen to catch some people up for example, but keep all the things meta out of it. Materials lore is fleshed out with few exceptions and some other player created things are quite extensive. But you can't really overall take in EVERYTHING about the past due to it either being lost to time or just not recorded at all. Edit: But you'll also come across people who will say, "Find out IC" for the sake of either a meme or because they want to keep their story lines a secret. If it's just small details that are superfluous, just don't bother with asking because they're just trying to get a rise out of you.
I’ve decided that I’m too far gone into sleeplessness and am going to reply a bit. It makes sense now about the lack of info. I thought it was due to stuff being secret, mess up on my end, apologies. Thanks for trying to make it newbie friendly to all of you, I appreciate it. Awesome community and I am glad to be part of it. I’ll keep an eye out for that stuff you mentioned. Edit: in response to Spetser, yeah, it’s a shame that not all of it can be salvaged, but I appreciate the effort that is being put into salvaging what can be.
