OOC Cooperation: How should it be stopped/discouraged?

[MonkeyPants4736]

Is it really so poorly understood? I don't think the proportion of characters showing evidence that their player misunderstands is different now than it was in ye olden days.

On the forum, it seems the overriding perception among players it that there are big (or at least frequent) CR breaches. But I didn't really see much in-game that suggested it. I saw one guy spawn and immediately ask how to get to some seemingly random town on another island, for example. Another new player apologized for english as a second language without giving an OOC notation to the comment. Pretty benign stuff, that I saw.

If there really is so much poor knowledge, or outright intentional CR breaches, then I'm either super naive or just happened to not be where it was occurring. (Or else it was too subtle to be noticed).

[Nikarus]

My thoughts.
If you have an IRL friend who you want to meet up with and play with ingame I really dont see the real harm. (More harm I see is all the sleepers people leave in their wake as they repeatedly spawn trying to get closer to eachother.)

I mean I joined with a couple IRL friends. The mission is to hunt around and see if we can run into eachother and tell who the other is though our respective RP and character design. But hell we dont even know what islands our "meet up" characters are on. I know where their other characters are. But were not trying to meet those up at all.

Map knowledge is kinda meh. Most places ive seen have had at least 1 world map, and several local maps, unless the place is completly devoid of life.

What bothers me is when openly hostile people make threats about them and their friends... that they cant contact.

[JsWill]

I don't know. I never seen it myself. I got accused of OOC cooperation for posting a funny quote once and the mods even looked into me. (Technically against the rules but I still wasn't cheating or anything) anyway my point is I never actually seen anyone do it. And I wonder if it's actually such a big issue as everyone says.

[MattWithoos]

My thoughts.
If you have an IRL friend who you want to meet up with and play with ingame I really dont see the real harm. (More harm I see is all the sleepers people leave in their wake as they repeatedly spawn trying to get closer to eachother.)

The problem is that you're imposing a narrative on the story that doesn't exist in-game.

Think about your favourite movie or TV show (maybe Game of Thrones?). Things unravel naturally - if a character is called to a location, they decide whether or not to go. They don't just suddenly go there without reason because the movie producer thought it would be cool. At minimum, there's a story-based reason.

The same applies with the game. It utterly destroys the entire point of the game to decide things OOCly. It's like "Hey John why are you suddenly leaving to X location?"... "Oh, uhm, because... (OOC: I'm meeting up with a friend)... because... uhh... uhhh.....". Sure, you can make an IC reason but it's still for an OOC motivation.

[Nikarus]

The problem is that you're imposing a narrative on the story that doesn't exist in-game.

What narrative? I find it humorous to say that I'm imposing a narrative to say,

If you have an IRL friend who you want to meet up with and play with ingame I really dont see the real harm. (More harm I see is all the sleepers people leave in their wake as they repeatedly spawn trying to get closer to eachother.)

When you immediately follow it up by saying that characters are required to have an IC motivation to travel and meet up with people.

Trust me. People spawning, actually playing for a while, hopping on a ship to journey to try and meet their soul mates (where they will then continue playing) with the motivation of "OOC, planning to meet up with friends to play together" is surely a hell of a lot better for the game, then the trail of dead bodies people leave as they try and spawn their characters closer to somewhere they want to be. Unless there's some legitimate narrative reason for the dead bodies?

This part's especially great.

Sure, you can make an IC reason but it's still for an OOC motivation.

What else are we supposed to do? Drop a character into the game and then try to play out the motivations of the character themselves?
Survival... that's about all that a character can have motivation for.

You might play a character that wants to go off on an adventure, travel around, become a trader, all because they find the town they live in boring... but that's nothing but the player's motivation to experience other areas of the world being channeled through the character (or maybe you actually find the town boring and the people antisocial).

Either way, any reasons for why a character might want to go off and do something beyond surviving... they're still an OOC motivation. Even interacting with others in whatever manner you choose, is done, for the lulz of the player (even if you try to say that your character was doing it for the lulz). Unless you really believe that there was an in game motivation for the Mushroom Seller?

[Rmak]

People find the oddest reasons to go to certain cities based purely on ooc motivation.

[SekoETC]

Is it really OOC motivation to go to Klojt to trade? Like 12 of my characters visited there over the years, although one of them was before the time of Coventina and some were after she died. Coventina usually found some excuse to be out of town or otherwise delegate trading to Emerald every time one of my other characters came to visit. As a result, most of them thought she was overrated and distant.

[Rmak]

I didn't mention anything about trade

[Alladinsane]

People often find the strangest motivations to not go certain places.
Don't sail your boat in certain straights.
Don't go where the players in that city are lame.

The ooc narrative is in every veteran players head and eventually forms in the newer players, based on personal or shared experiences.
When you spawn in a certain place, you take off or steal some notes and take off.

Or sleep.

[nateflory]

People often find the strangest motivations to not go certain places.
Don't sail your boat in certain straights.
Don't go where the players in that city are lame.

The ooc narrative is in every veteran players head and eventually forms in the newer players, based on personal or shared experiences.
When you spawn in a certain place, you take off or steal some notes and take off.

Or sleep.

There's an interesting spin on the OOC influence rule.. it's the exact Opposite of Cooperation, but is pure OOC influence nonetheless.

If a character spawns in a place they don't like, "AS A BLANK SLATE AND UNIQUE CHARACTER", should PD get involved if they just walk away (report every newspawn thief!!) (report every NewSleeper to confirm is not a vet that got a boring spot!?) (report... you get the idea).

Lack of character interaction for OOC reasons is just another way of "not improving the excitement of this SpawnPlace by willfull OOC action", isn't it? Something to ponder, if we get too caught up in this topic.... Where's the line get drawn?

Granted, Ialso understand you can NOT make a player play the game. It's a balancing act, between fair and impartial and "good for Cantr" overall, I guess.

[Alladinsane]

There's an interesting spin on the OOC influence rule.. it's the exact Opposite of Cooperation, but is pure OOC influence nonetheless.

If a character spawns in a place they don't like, "AS A BLANK SLATE AND UNIQUE CHARACTER", should PD get involved if they just walk away (report every newspawn thief!!) (report every NewSleeper to confirm is not a vet that got a boring spot!?) (report... you get the idea).

Lack of character interaction for OOC reasons is just another way of "not improving the excitement of this SpawnPlace by willfull OOC action", isn't it? Something to ponder, if we get too caught up in this topic.... Where's the line get drawn?

Granted, Ialso understand you can NOT make a player play the game. It's a balancing act, between fair and impartial and "good for Cantr" overall, I guess.

I should have put the excuses I listed in quotes... my stumble. They are reasons why some people do those things and were given excuses that were dealt with... this is more of a caveat to not use them in that context. It rarely works under the eyes of scrutiny.
There is cooperation...seen it by the hundreds.

But other ooc reasons for leaving a location may be the location itself; or when the char does not spawn with the skills (Usually fighting) that the player wants. Some prevalent rp within the spawn town... they don't want to be slaves (In effect), nor members of a religion, a group, or just find another char so annoying that they want to bail. So you steal notes, or attack and run.

To a certain point there is no possible empirically fomented prosecution for this, unless the player himself cuts their own throat.
Just like RL...we choose our answers wisely.