Tips for upcoming sims (cause I know they keep coming).

[Tantus]

If I were sexist, Tantus, I would say you're typically bitching like a -girl-.......

The lore of Kaelus and its role play were consistant. I know of no sim which had opened with such a lore. This story was intensively played by the two factions which fought each other.
No group ran from Tarnwald in calling Tarnwald players lifestylers. A group left Tarnwald after your stupid notice, resuming the situation with these words: "again that same old school Gor crap".

I take responsibility for the notice, however, I was neither the head of caste nor held any particular interest in filling slave papers. It was a requirement of the city's IC Laws, which your friends should have familiarized themselves with before joining.

The 'Lore of Kaelus' has been referenced in numerous threads over the years, I've not been inclined to question it before. Except now I've asked how this storyline developed and you only respond with petty insults, it coveys to me an absence of actual substance.

I'm not knocking Kaelus here, it sounds a thrilling concept. Treve occasionally occupied Minus and once they RP banned us for helping Minus defend themselves since the occupiers were always meant to win. I imagined Kaelus had handled it differently but after this many pages my interpretation of events is the sim opened with great potential. Citizen and Occupier alike were united in their war against Maelstrom/Hochburg. Then people started leaving the sim so the transition was never realized. If any Arians were arrested or impaled, you would have mentioned it by now, so I can assume an absence of consequences for the villainous characters.

About Laura, I asked you to tell us how you removed Ubar Cassius from power. You made clear it happened through your own actions.
From what I have been told, you gave yourself a credit you didn't deserve. In fact, all this RP was described to me like a crapshow (ubar captured, then got his head was cut off and the player eventually banned all the protagonists from Laura).

With my conception of political RP, I supposed you had gotten allies in Ar (maybe, the Taurentians) and convinced them to depose the ubar. After, I figured you had built a few new schemes in order to name a pupper ubar who would have allowed an occupation by Laura. This town would have dictated the conditions for a peace and at the end, by the means of pawns put in position of authority within Ar, ruled that city...

Sorry, I'm not impressed by a mere capture.

But eh, feel free to give your own version.

Whilst I may have been the cause of this war, I've been clear in stating a team of excellent roleplayers present in Laura came together and drove this story with a level of effort and competency I've not seen in SL Gor before. And I've been part of many large scale storylines in the past, but this war was remarkable for its focus on the small details and the large consequences we achieved. Not in our sim alone, but on the sims of others.

The incident you've related was at the very end, after over 3 months of solid roleplaying. The first ubar and commander with whom I had exchanged words, were very quick to leave Ar once we raided and took their men captive. The war became very real for them. As they had issued death warrants and black caste contracts against my character, I felt it was irresponsible for them to run. But it began a long process of our influencing Ar and Hochburg's councils.

Because an outpost like Laura wasn't about to 'occupy' Ar, in our small council we were roleplaying a bankrupt economy, our war with Ar was unsustainable. We were one of the few Gorean RP sims who maintained accounts of our income from raids, tariffs and taxes, against expenditures. Whilst others roleplay vast fortunes, we kept a dedicated accounting team who issued quarterly reports. I reduced salaries through the Scribe's caste and stripped down my office for an impression of austerity. This war was killing us economically, it was stunting our growth and planned expansions for the port. This was the attitude we roleplayed with.

To even begin the war, we spent some time surveying a city who had conveniently built a bank. After the appropriate planning there was a heist, we locked down the city and spent an hour carting gold from their vaults to the harbour. It funded the beginnings of our war with Ar. And our roleplay in Hochburg where we were busy inciting civil strife among their lower castes. An effort which required funding too. Eventually we succeeded in gaining Hochburg's alliance, which Ar had also wanted.

In short, the economic consequences of being at war was roleplayed extensively from the beginning. To occupy Ar wasn't within our scope, our stated objectives were to reach a ceasefire and to build upon it with peace and trade treaties which favour us. After some three months of war and negotiating we reached the ceasefire. Ar, to their credit, raided our town and won. They took Laura's Regent and myself as 'guests' back to Ar, and in a scene filled with Arain pomp and some twenty participants they announced their ceasefire. Because I wasn't going to leave with a bad deal for Laura, I said I will write the treaty, they agreed and everything was reaching a satisfying conclusion.

It wasn't all fun and flowery, tensions and distrust remained between the sides. During that week an incident involving Ar necessitated in a review of our standing with them, unfortunately a death occurred.

Actually, in environments like ROAIF, these basics are common standards, perfectly understood and applied by 99% of players.
In Gor... Well, re-read Leah's posts, lol lol!

The joke is on you when you roleplay with shotgunning one-liners. Why would you do that yourself?

I haven't encountered people like those since the past decade. You're not girls any longer, take responsibility for where you roleplay.

A role play is not a video game, Tantus. In role play, you can focus on your characters, their emotions, sentiments, personal evolution, dramas, ordeals, etc. Who they love, who they hate, how they blossom or the opposite in a particular situation/event/storyline.
You only see games to win... Characters are for you like some pawns you move on a chessboard. Quests to fill, combats to win, purposes to reach. Rather superficial for those like me who want to explore the different aspects of our humane nature through our fictive characters and the situation they face. These purposes are, so, more as a background for our character.

A roleplaying sim has a finite span of two to three months. Within those limitations you must manage your time if your character is to progress. I consider advancement a part of roleplaying, it motivated my character, determined his associations and those he couldn't afford to take an interest in.

The soap opera style of roleplaying you describe is attractive to some limited number of individuals. Probably those who also watch soap operas in RL too.

We've dissected a sample of ten 'advanced roleplaying' sims and strangely enough, they all withered within the first two months. With not a single one accomplishing advanced roleplaying themes. The question is 'why'. With all the lore, the applications, the admin guidance, why is there a pattern of consecutive failures.

In fact, Tantus, you bitched and extrapoled, projecting your own prejudices about places where you never RPed and people with whom you never interacted IC'ly. You keep repeatiting yourself.

If this was a performance review, no one would be interested in your stated objectives. Only the results matter.

Hearing endless definitions of advanced roleplayers means nothing to me. The results are all I ask for when a sim claims to have done it better.

[Tantus]

I don't know if we're talking about the same thing here, but for me personally the Game of Thrones genre within SL stands out quite a bit.

ROIAF traffic has gone up and down but it usually is somewhere in the range of 20k to 50k (especially during reopenings, big events or new chapters). Even then, sometimes you still have competening new GoT RP sims popping up, who also seem to hover around that 20k to 30k traffic mark.

From what I've heard when ROIAF closed it's doors, it didn't take more than a few weeks before another GoT sim popped up created by mostly the same community of RPers, and new people. In my eyes that 'advanced RP sim' doesn't follow this pattern of 'sims dying after a little while'. It seems a pretty persistent RP community with a focus on high standards (and at the very least the basics which are so rare to find in SL Gor) and traffic that outperforms even today's most active gorean sims.

The same could be said for the Gorean merry-go-round with new 'RP' sims opening and the same groups circling around them. It's not an indicator of a loyal community.

When new GoT sims opened, ROIAF tanked and everyone flocked to the shiny new sim. Just as happened in Gor.

Whilst ROIAF had a higher standard of emoters, emoting is not synonymous with roleplaying. Where is the immersion when everyone congregates at the skybox, and I've made this point before. The sim may have held 30k traffic, 25k of which was from people stood OOC'ly at the entrance.

The streets and public venues were deserted, smallfolk fell out of existence, the only times people were IC was during the weekly court, or if someone pinged them in Discord to go down and play out a scene.

If a new GoT sim has adopted ROIAF's community, the only guarantee is it will end the same way as ROIAF. It's illogical for the sim to be under discussion any longer since most claims of its competence as an RP venue were proven to be exaggerated.

Sims change, people don't.

Why don't 'advanced RP sims' last long in SL Gor? Well, I fear the answer is rather simple: There is a lack of 'advanced' RPers to keep them alive. Most of those seem to have moved on to other RP genres... and those few good RPers that are there either:
A) Keep to themselves because they know their RP can get ruined if they involve the community at large
B) Are very thinly spread out across the grid of many different Gorean sims.

There really isn't any other mystery to it. It's not that people get 'bored' in advanced RP sims, it's more that most RPers in SL Gor are pretty boring and afraid of innovation (or well-written RP for that matter :p).

It's true of all genres. There's a popular group named "Seeking Roleplay" where mostly non-Gorean sims advertise themselves. It also hosts the occasional bouts of drama kicking off in GC from those involved in these sims, and their demise. Same complaints, same dramas, different genres.

SL Gor isn't holding a license on RP sim issues and I shouldn't need to state the obvious.

How to make a really popular and high traffic gorean sim?
1. Cater towards a mixed crowd of semi-RPers to lifestylers
1b. Have a mixture of OOC events and OOC community tools (eg: voice chats, discord, etc.) and play other games together while people are too bored to write.
2. Keep your rules very simple, and don't necessarily enforce RP etiquette as much as you enforce a 'no drama' approach (no matter who is wrong or right)
3. Make sure the theme and storylines of the sim are 'Gor-lite': don't RP anything too controversial or something that doesn't fit 'modern morals'
4. Push storylines that emphasize the 'SL Gor lore' of the genre more than what the books portray: slave-girls are children who need coddled and sometimes slain if they've been naughty, like not running to the tavern to serve when someone rings the sim bell, even if they're private slaves
5. Invite one of the three active Black Caste group, so they can AFK on the sim
6. Weekly sword fighting tournaments
7. Occasionally some raids, but make the defenses really impossible, so you'll rarely lose while defending

It's not rocket science. It'll serve the community of SL Gor at large perfectly. It's just not everyone's cup of tea (and many people grow out of it).

These are complaints from even 10 years ago. Posting them a decade later is beyond the sense of any discussion but if you were randomly venting, then go ahead. These sims which still exist serve a particular community, I don't care enough about them to even dwell on it. But I think comparing yourself to Lifestylers is selling your potential short.

[Sasi]

I take responsibility for the notice, however, I was neither the head of caste nor held any particular interest in filling slave papers. It was a requirement of the city's IC Laws, which your friends should have familiarized themselves with before joining.
The 'Lore of Kaelus' has been referenced in numerous threads over the years, I've not been inclined to question it before. Except now I've asked how this storyline developed and you only respond with petty insults, it coveys to me an absence of actual substance.
I'm not knocking Kaelus here, it sounds a thrilling concept. Treve occasionally occupied Minus and once they RP banned us for helping Minus defend themselves since the occupiers were always meant to win. I imagined Kaelus had handled it differently but after this many pages my interpretation of events is the sim opened with great potential. Citizen and Occupier alike were united in their war against Maelstrom/Hochburg. Then people started leaving the sim so the transition was never realized. If any Arians were arrested or impaled, you would have mentioned it by now, so I can assume an absence of consequences for the villainous characters.

City laws are IC, you have no obligation to read them when you join a sim. And if your character is illiterate, you may never read them. Second, as they are IC, people should have the choice to FTB them. Your notice imposed to RP that old school Gor crap and provide some NC (slave exam + slave papers).

You didn't question the lore of Kaelus. You extrapoled, even called us GE, elitists, etc etc. In almost all your posts in this thread, you bitch sims and people. Kaelus, ORS, the different Ar sims, even the first Malignance Port Kar, and of course, your favorite target, ROIAF.

And you find me petty when I point out your old school Gor mundane stuff? Laugh, it's rich!

The war was led by Ar, there was not unity at all between Kaelians and Arians. The Kaelian warriors marched under the banners of Ar because they were not given the choice. And not all the Kaelians were rebels. But Arians or Kaelians, they were all members of the same sim: Kaelus. Also, sorry to prove you wrong once again, several men, participants in the rebellion, suffered from failures. I know it well, my character owned fighting slaves and the Kaelians who were arrested ended up in my stables as slaves (not all male players feel demeaned when their character becomes a slave...) We got an execution, once. Perm death of course.

Seriously, Tantus, stop assuming... Every time you assume, you just type some new bitching....

Whilst I may have been the cause of this war, I've been clear in stating a team of excellent roleplayers present in Laura came together and drove this story with a level of effort and competency I've not seen in SL Gor before. And I've been part of many large scale storylines in the past, but this war was remarkable for its focus on the small details and the large consequences we achieved. Not in our sim alone, but on the sims of others.
The incident you've related was at the very end, after over 3 months of solid roleplaying. The first ubar and commander with whom I had exchanged words, were very quick to leave Ar once we raided and took their men captive. The war became very real for them. As they had issued death warrants and black caste contracts against my character, I felt it was irresponsible for them to run. But it began a long process of our influencing Ar and Hochburg's councils.
Because an outpost like Laura wasn't about to 'occupy' Ar, in our small council we were roleplaying a bankrupt economy, our war with Ar was unsustainable. We were one of the few Gorean RP sims who maintained accounts of our income from raids, tariffs and taxes, against expenditures. Whilst others roleplay vast fortunes, we kept a dedicated accounting team who issued quarterly reports. I reduced salaries through the Scribe's caste and stripped down my office for an impression of austerity. This war was killing us economically, it was stunting our growth and planned expansions for the port. This was the attitude we roleplayed with.
To even begin the war, we spent some time surveying a city who had conveniently built a bank. After the appropriate planning there was a heist, we locked down the city and spent an hour carting gold from their vaults to the harbour. It funded the beginnings of our war with Ar. And our roleplay in Hochburg where we were busy inciting civil strife among their lower castes. An effort which required funding too. Eventually we succeeded in gaining Hochburg's alliance, which Ar had also wanted.
In short, the economic consequences of being at war was roleplayed extensively from the beginning. To occupy Ar wasn't within our scope, our stated objectives were to reach a ceasefire and to build upon it with peace and trade treaties which favour us. After some three months of war and negotiating we reached the ceasefire. Ar, to their credit, raided our town and won. They took Laura's Regent and myself as 'guests' back to Ar, and in a scene filled with Arain pomp and some twenty participants they announced their ceasefire. Because I wasn't going to leave with a bad deal for Laura, I said I will write the treaty, they agreed and everything was reaching a satisfying conclusion.
It wasn't all fun and flowery, tensions and distrust remained between the sides. During that week an incident involving Ar necessitated in a review of our standing with them, unfortunately a death occurred.

The first ubar of this Ar, I remember, was rather inactive and didn't even last 3 months. I remember the elections that Cassius won. When they occured, this Ar was not opened since 3 months...
Rping that your city becomes short in supplies and raid on some other sims, is definitely not my conception of political RP. You rp economical consequences the same way you RP some natural disaster. No much difficulty, there. Not that this RP is bad, all the opposite, it's an interesting background which adds realism to a situation of war. But actually, if you defeat a ubar with the means of raids, well, no big feat, there.

And don't make me wrong... I'm not even supporting this Ar... I left it some weeks after its opening and already gave my reasons.

The joke is on you when you roleplay with shotgunning one-liners. Why would you do that yourself?
I haven't encountered people like those since the past decade. You're not girls any longer, take responsibility for where you roleplay.

People who don't respect turns, are everywhere in SL Gor (even in Tarnwald...). Re-read Anarch and Leah's posts. Also, these people don't wear a sign over their head where they claim to be oneliners and not familiar with the RP etiquette. I'm not always rping in my IC house and until you start RP with these people, you don't know.

It's why I tend, mostly, to RP with people I know.

A roleplaying sim has a finite span of two to three months. Within those limitations you must manage your time if your character is to progress. I consider advancement a part of roleplaying, it motivated my character, determined his associations and those he couldn't afford to take an interest in.
The soap opera style of roleplaying you describe is attractive to some limited number of individuals. Probably those who also watch soap operas in RL too.

Well, TV shows such as Spartacus, Game of Thrones, Vikings, The Last Kingdom, etc must be soap operas when their key characters experience personal stories with other protagonists, feel emotions and sentiments such as love, hate, fear, joy, sadness etc...

Sorry, but if "advancing" is your only focus, if your character's relationships are only based on associations helping you to reach some material purposes, you can as well just play World of Warcraft....

The personal stories between characters, those made of emotions and sentiments are not a soap opera when they're not played like dollar-store paperback dovey lovey fantasies. They add the emotional part to our role play and give a human dimension to our characters.

[Anarch Allegiere]

When new GoT sims opened, ROIAF tanked and everyone flocked to the shiny new sim. Just as happened in Gor.

Whilst ROIAF had a higher standard of emoters, emoting is not synonymous with roleplaying.

Well, I don't entirely disagree with you, but in my opinion there is more going on than just a 'higher standard of emotes', there is also just a 'higher sense of what RP should be like'.

People lounging in the skybox? Sometimes that happened, most of the time not. The smallfolk feeling out of place had to do with an entirely other issue, not related to the skybox. If you're european you might've seen people lounging there more than not (because that is where people park their toons when asleep or at work) and SL is still mostly a US-time centered platform, it is most active during US evenings.

Your earlier arguments were that 'advanced RP' just doesn't seem to have an appeal, and to me that idea is entirely wrong.

You also try to pretend like the issues in SL Gor are the same as in every other RP genre, which is also... false. Anyone who dipped their toes elsewhere can tell you that SL Gor is pretty close, or already, the bottom of the barrel when it comes to RP quality.

It would be more interesting to investigate the cause of that than to try and pretend everything is just fine with it. The problem probably lies somewhere with the fact that nobody in SL Gor is held accountable for their behavior: they can act like total cunts break the rules and just choose from x other sims to move to instead while refusing to learn anything. In other genres people have to swallow their pride, learn a thing or two, apologize and come back on their knees to beg if they're allowed to play in the genre / sim again.

[Tantus]

City laws are IC, you have no obligation to read them when you join a sim. And if your character is illiterate, you may never read them. Second, as they are IC, people should have the choice to FTB them. Your notice imposed to RP that old school Gor crap and provide some NC (slave exam + slave papers).

You didn't question the lore of Kaelus. You extrapoled, even called us GE, elitists, etc etc. In almost all your posts in this thread, you bitch sims and people. Kaelus, ORS, the different Ar sims, even the first Malignance Port Kar, and of course, your favorite target, ROIAF.

And you find me petty when I point out your old school Gor mundane stuff? Laugh, it's rich!

The war was led by Ar, there was not unity at all between Kaelians and Arians. The Kaelian warriors marched under the banners of Ar because they were not given the choice. And not all the Kaelians were rebels. But Arians or Kaelians, they were all members of the same sim: Kaelus. Also, sorry to prove you wrong once again, several men, participants in the rebellion, suffered from failures. I know it well, my character owned fighting slaves and the Kaelians who were arrested ended up in my stables as slaves (not all male players feel demeaned when their character becomes a slave...) We got an execution, once. Perm death of course.

Seriously, Tantus, stop assuming... Every time you assume, you just type some new bitching....

My conclusions are based on everything you've stated. So Kaelus opened as an occupied sim, some citizens were arrested and harassed. As is expected. And I've "assumed" the citizens and occupiers raided together, they did. And I've 'assumed' there were no consequences faced by the Arian occupiers, and there weren't. It's not unfair to surmise the sim achieved a fraction of its potential.

When you insist on raising ROIAF as some kind of poster boy for RP standards, I will explain its failings as an RP sim.

And I have no issues with Malignance, I respect Syn and Dyce as sim owners. They've invested into their visions for SL RP and genuinely did set trends for others to follow, I've personally enjoyed roleplaying on some of their sims. Whilst they promoted a great concept for Malignance, I don't recall an equal effort from the playerbase.

The first ubar of this Ar, I remember, was rather inactive and didn't even last 3 months. I remember the elections that Cassius won. When they occured, this Ar was not opened since 3 months...
Rping that your city becomes short in supplies and raid on some other sims, is definitely not my conception of political RP. You rp economical consequences the same way you RP some natural disaster. No much difficulty, there. Not that this RP is bad, all the opposite, it's an interesting background which adds realism to a situation of war. But actually, if you defeat a ubar with the means of raids, well, no big feat, there.

And don't make me wrong... I'm not even supporting this Ar... I left it some weeks after its opening and already gave my reasons.

The first ubar and commander of Ar caved under the pressures put upon them, politically and through those initial raids lost by Ar. I take it as a victory when people issue BC contracts against your character, then hop out of Gor.

Cassius was elected next, but I've never considered the execution was a victory for us, it's not even something I've brought into this discussion. Whilst he was in power and Ar were vying for influence in Hochburg, that city became a political battleground with each of us working to secure an alliance. Hochburg became pivotal to both our aims, officially we worked on their council members, whilst fermenting dissent among their low castes too. As a contingency. Eventually we resorted to civil war and out from the carnage, promoted our choice of ubar to rule Hochburg.

Roleplaying in so many locations with many objectives week by week was hard work, but we had some great roleplayers who carried their missions to success. Pro-active, ambitious roleplayers who take the initiative are the real 'advanced roleplayers' of this game.

Unlike those who laze around indoors, roleplaying emotions, expecting admin teams to carry the sim's storyline forward.

Looting rival cities and using that capital for furthering your ambitions is entirely within the realms of political roleplaying. Wasn't it the motivation of Kaelus's war, to control resources across the map?

People who don't respect turns, are everywhere in SL Gor (even in Tarnwald...). Re-read Anarch and Leah's posts. Also, these people don't wear a sign over their head where they claim to be oneliners and not familiar with the RP etiquette. I'm not always rping in my IC house and until you start RP with these people, you don't know.

It's why I tend, mostly, to RP with people I know.

Have Anarch or Leah stated they met one-liners in Tarnwald?

I don't understand the point of roleplaying at an "Old Gor" sim, then giving victim statements years later.

Here's an advanced roleplaying trait : Taking Responsibility for where you roleplay.
Without it you all sound like children.

Well, TV shows such as Spartacus, Game of Thrones, Vikings, The Last Kingdom, etc must be soap operas when their key characters experience personal stories with other protagonists, feel emotions and sentiments such as love, hate, fear, joy, sadness etc...

Sorry, but if "advancing" is your only focus, if your character's relationships are only based on associations helping you to reach some material purposes, you can as well just play World of Warcraft....

The personal stories between characters, those made of emotions and sentiments are not a soap opera when they're not played like dollar-store paperback dovey lovey fantasies. They add the emotional part to our role play and give a human dimension to our characters.

The keyword here is "protagonists". Many characters are single-dimensional, they're uninvolved, unmotivated, uninspired, just a waste of your time to roleplay with.

I preferred proactive roleplayers who are relatively rare. One in twenty. When you invest in these characters your own will reach states of heightened emotions and even conflicts of duty. But these moments are roleplayed exclusively with the characters who provoked those sentiments from within your own, it's an intimate exchange, your character's composure isn't going to waver with just anyone.

[Tantus]

Your earlier arguments were that 'advanced RP' just doesn't seem to have an appeal, and to me that idea is entirely wrong.

You also try to pretend like the issues in SL Gor are the same as in every other RP genre, which is also... false. Anyone who dipped their toes elsewhere can tell you that SL Gor is pretty close, or already, the bottom of the barrel when it comes to RP quality.

It would be more interesting to investigate the cause of that than to try and pretend everything is just fine with it. The problem probably lies somewhere with the fact that nobody in SL Gor is held accountable for their behavior: they can act like total cunts break the rules and just choose from x other sims to move to instead while refusing to learn anything. In other genres people have to swallow their pride, learn a thing or two, apologize and come back on their knees to beg if they're allowed to play in the genre / sim again.

As you've misread my feelings on common Gorean sims, it's not that I pretend their issues don't exist, those places don't exist to me as 'roleplaying sims'.

After investing time towards steering SL Gor's course away from the Lifestyle and back towards Roleplaying, I concluded those people weren't interested so I stepped away from it all. The issues you're pointing out today, are those I highlighted nearly a decade ago.

The Gorean Lifestyle sims are not Gorean Roleplaying sims, they are similar to the Community sims you'll find across the grid. MC sims, vampire families, medieval, renaissance, urban cities and even GoT community sims. The largest collection of sims after Gor, may be the civil war themed continent. In these places you'll find many who cross IC/OOC in a lose definition of roleplaying, but also individuals who can roleplay well among them.

It's important to make a distinction between Community and Roleplaying sims.

When I reference SL Gorean 'Roleplaying' sims, it's related to the handful of cities who've popped up over the years with an actual, IC environment. The average Gorean city doesn't exist to me as a Roleplaying sim. I don't think about them, I don't talk about them, I don't care about them. These people diverged towards their own demise several years ago, they deserve what they became.

As to 'Advanced roleplaying", whatever it's meant to mean sounds closer to a marketing buzzword than anything with actual substance. Those sims rise and fall, they have dramas and issues, they require teams of storytelling admins to compensate for player lethargy. Eventually they close with ill sentiments all round, it's not how I would define an 'advanced' state of anything. Maybe, once again, I'm ten years ahead of the crowd in seeing the obvious patterns.

[Sasi]

My conclusions are based on everything you've stated. So Kaelus opened as an occupied sim, some citizens were arrested and harassed. As is expected. And I've "assumed" the citizens and occupiers raided together, they did. And I've 'assumed' there were no consequences faced by the Arian occupiers, and there weren't. It's not unfair to surmise the sim achieved a fraction of its potential.
When you insist on raising ROIAF as some kind of poster boy for RP standards, I will explain its failings as an RP sim.
And I have no issues with Malignance, I respect Syn and Dyce as sim owners. They've invested into their visions for SL RP and genuinely did set trends for others to follow, I've personally enjoyed roleplaying on some of their sims. Whilst they promoted a great concept for Malignance, I don't recall an equal effort from the playerbase.

I told you didn't make conclusions, but extrapolations I have been forced to correct them and every time, you deformed my explanations.
Also, Arians and Kaelians didn't raid together. First, we didn't raid. We have organized battles, with rules, at planned schedules. Not a fucking non sense raid.
Second, raiding together suppose a voluntary collaboration. It was not. Kaelians were under occupation, under Ar's authority. Ar defended her territories, her possessions. Kaelus had became one.

And the sim achevied its potential: Tons of fun RP for its members who played their personal stories, wrote storylines, set schemes, etc.

We were not a video game with a particular goal to reach. If owners and admin team had not been tired at the end, we could have continued under this occupied / vassal city lore. Because one of our worries was "and after the occupation, once Kaelus had gotten rid of Ar, what to do? We had discussed of this issue and really, the solution was not so simple because this conflict between two fractions generated a lot of RP.

Regarding ROIAf, re-read Anarch's posts. And like me and a few others in this thread, he pointed out, again, the low level of RP you find in Gor.

You actually denigrated Malignance that you included in the category of these sims with zero activity, people who stood isolated in their home with nothing to do. You said you visited these sims. And your statements were wrong. I RPed about 3 months in this sim (2 of my friends were sim owners, they left before the closing, I will not speak of their reasons). There was a heavy traffic and a lot of activity. Every time you set a foot in this sim, there were a lot of people in the streets (not to mention a weekly big event). We are far from a zero activity sim. The decrease of traffic started while and after the flood event (people tend not to like natural disaster events...) Seriously, Tantus, get a better memory or stop talking about sims where you didn't RP.
(https://gyazo.com/faead53383395ca31c67d5e7144ca76b)

The first ubar and commander of Ar caved under the pressures put upon them, politically and through those initial raids lost by Ar. I take it as a victory when people issue BC contracts against your character, then hop out of Gor.
Cassius was elected next, but I've never considered the execution was a victory for us, it's not even something I've brought into this discussion. Whilst he was in power and Ar were vying for influence in Hochburg, that city became a political battleground with each of us working to secure an alliance. Hochburg became pivotal to both our aims, officially we worked on their council members, whilst fermenting dissent among their low castes too. As a contingency. Eventually we resorted to civil war and out from the carnage, promoted our choice of ubar to rule Hochburg.
Roleplaying in so many locations with many objectives week by week was hard work, but we had some great roleplayers who carried their missions to success. Pro-active, ambitious roleplayers who take the initiative are the real 'advanced roleplayers' of this game.
Unlike those who laze around indoors, roleplaying emotions, expecting admin teams to carry the sim's storyline forward.
Looting rival cities and using that capital for furthering your ambitions is entirely within the realms of political roleplaying. Wasn't it the motivation of Kaelus's war, to control resources across the map?

To take as a victory when your enemy sends you an assassin and leaves Gor, speaks volumes about the goals you prioritize... Just win, whatever the means. Sorry, not my conception of fun. When my IC opponent leaves the game, the story is seriously damaged, not won. We're not playing a board game...

And don't compare this kind of political RP with Kaelus. In Kaelus, we had -one- weekly battle but the rest of the time, our people were active -within- the sim, rping with other sim members. They didn't bring their traffic and RP to other sims. In Kaelus we created inner sim RP. What you describe is the typical old school Gor RP. Raids and discussions for alliances, political issues sorted out with raids. Yeah, sorry, definitively not my cup of tea. And the biggest difficulty in these alliances is to get people online for the time where you have to TP to these sims and meet them. Gor RPers and their alliances.... Boring....
Anyway, we're never going to agree on this point we're debating since weeks. So, let's agree to disagree.

And the first ubar of this Ar was under pression? With his low level of activity, yeah, the pressure had to be unbearable, laugh!

Have Anarch or Leah stated they met one-liners in Tarnwald?
I don't understand the point of roleplaying at an "Old Gor" sim, then giving victim statements years later.
Here's an advanced roleplaying trait : Taking Responsibility for where you roleplay.
Without it you all sound like children.

Anarch and Leah, like myself, gave a general critic of SL Gor, one rather negative. But I Rped in Tarnwald and yes, I met two or three people whose RP style was the oneline one. That was not a big deal, just to point out that they are everywhere.

Also, I RPed in many sims which allows me to give an opinion acquired with experience. Unlike you who speaks of sims where you never RPed, of people with whom you never engaged in a story, not even in a single scene. Which makes you extrapolate about the RP they offer, even, bitch.

The keyword here is "protagonists". Many characters are single-dimensional, they're uninvolved, unmotivated, uninspired, just a waste of your time to roleplay with.

It's the majority of SL Gor RPers.... Hence Anarch's last post:

You also try to pretend like the issues in SL Gor are the same as in every other RP genre, which is also... false. Anyone who dipped their toes elsewhere can tell you that SL Gor is pretty close, or already, the bottom of the barrel when it comes to RP quality.

I preferred proactive roleplayers who are relatively rare. One in twenty. When you invest in these characters your own will reach states of heightened emotions and even conflicts of duty. But these moments are roleplayed exclusively with the characters who provoked those sentiments from within your own, it's an intimate exchange, your character's composure isn't going to waver with just anyone.

I met quite a few of these people over the years. They were, when active in Gor (most of them gave up, like me), my usual RP partners.
But it's you who called "soap opera" these intimate exchanges that I deem necessary for a intense RP experience. They are the human dimension necessary to our characters, to play with the palette of humans emotions, to depict a character who is not yourself but a different person, with a different personality. And it's the one which really challenges our creativity. It's why I don't care at all about goals in alliances, wars, and similar contexts. Winning or losing in a political scheme is exactly the same to me. What matters is how my character evolves, how she feels, what she becomes, and with her, the closest protagonists, in the ordeals we face together in our storylines. The most thrilling part and the political context is just the background, the lore to which I put down roots for my character. Without this human part, I would still play WoW.

[Tantus]

The best course is for you, Leah and Anarch to create accounts on the ROIAF forums.
Once there you can congratulate yourselves on being above the 'roleplayers of Sais' and everyone will agree.

Anarch actively avoids any criticism of 'advanced roleplaying sims', his every post returns to his comfort zone; discussing the flaws of Lifestyle sims. The places I won't categorise as Roleplaying sims, the cities which haven't existed to me as IC venues for several years, which hold no relevance in any discussion of roleplaying standards. Are the sims you're all stuck on. Move on. Liberate yourselves.

It's pure comedy when your only motivation for posting here is summarised as, "Let's not discuss the flaws of our Advanced RP sims, when we can compare ourselves to non-roleplaying entities". Today I invite you all to pull your heads out of the sand and look in the mirror too.

Whilst you may criticize my conclusions on Kaelus all you like, call a raid a battle, call GE and Lifestyle people your roleplaying partners(Maelstrom/Ivars/Hochburg, the fact remains this sim was meant to experience a transition. It's opening concept was an occupied city which eventually leads to consequences for the occupier. That day never came, once the Arians sensed repercussions on the horizon they all packed up and left in a hurry, it's very poor form from very fragile people. These were not ICA=ICC compatible roleplayers, they were just a bunch of raiders who returned to GE once the weekly raids struck a ban-wall.

I really don't care of anything which had or hadn't happened in Kaelus, anything we've learned this week is all new to me. But I'm not upset to learn the group of people who apparently left Tarnwald because of me, proceeded to open this sim. So far as I'm concerned they deserved the experience.

No, I didn't invest time in Malignance, great concept but I didn't see individuals worth roleplaying with in those who joined. Just people who held their abilities in very high regard, but achieved very little. No surprise your friends from Kaelus were there too.

Did any household of Kar gain the influence necessary for control over the port? No? Then the sim was a non-story when it failed to achieve its single, stated goal. All of these amazing roleplayers shooting para-emotes for three months straight and not a single worthwhile event came out of it? Who teaches these people how to roleplay?

Roleplaying is not a substitute for RL where you build relationships and share emotions. It's fiction. It's a sandbox. It's a finite span of 3 months to build your character and change lives around you. But it seems you all have this aversion to building alliances and making contacts outside of your home. In any power-play you need allies, it's not wrong to roleplay an amiable personality who can make friends too.

"Conflict roleplay" is just an exciting buzzword the kids are so fascinated with to understand it's rarely the correct approach. Why make an enemy when you can make an ally, a friend who will later help you rule the city.

I was never interested in the volumes of paragraphs roleplayed, all that mattered was the progress. Who showed initiative, who carried a sim forwards, who was responsible for critical events? Or were the players so lazy it took an admin team to drive storylines forwards, and even then the players sat at home roleplaying among themselves. Fuck these people, they are not roleplayers but they fill roleplaying sims to capacity very quickly.

I met quite a few of these people over the years. They were, when active in Gor (most of them gave up, like me), my usual RP partners.
But it's you who called "soap opera" these intimate exchanges that I deem necessary for a intense RP experience. They are the human dimension necessary to our characters, to play with the palette of humans emotions, to depict a character who is not yourself but a different person, with a different personality. And it's the one which really challenges our creativity. It's why I don't care at all about goals in alliances, wars, and similar contexts. Winning or losing in a political scheme is exactly the same to me. What matters is how my character evolves, how she feels, what she becomes, and with her, the closest protagonists, in the ordeals we face together in our storylines. The most thrilling part and the political context is just the background, the lore to which I put down roots for my character. Without this human part, I would still play WoW.

In a perfect world everyone would have the freedom to roleplay these moments. Probably the only aspect we agree on is, male characters are in shorter supply, they tend to have greater responsibilities and expectations upon their time. Time which is already limited when SL isn't your life, but something you do on the side in a limited capacity. Within those few hours you have a choice of roleplaying for your city, your group, your family or yourself.

It's not possible to do it all, from a male roleplayer's perspective, I can say roleplaying your character's emotions are at the bottom of your list. At the appropriate moments, during certain scenes with particular characters it happens. It's just not a priority. It's something I could explore as part of a private roleplay outside of any sim. So when I'm part of a sim, I will focus on the sim first.

[Anarch Allegiere]

The best course is for you, Leah and Anarch to create accounts on the ROIAF forums.
Once there you can congratulate yourselves on being above the 'roleplayers of Sais' and everyone will agree.

Anarch actively avoids any criticism of 'advanced roleplaying sims', his every post returns to his comfort zone; discussing the flaws of Lifestyle sims. The places I won't categorise as Roleplaying sims, the cities which haven't existed to me as IC venues for several years, which hold no relevance in any discussion of roleplaying standards. Are the sims you're all stuck on. Move on. Liberate yourselves.

Considering SL Gor is one big shared grid of players and everyone can RP on any sim, I'm entirely confused or not understand how you're making a divide between lifestyler and RP sims? When you RP in Gor you're bound to come into contact with all sorts of 'sorts' of role players.

It's no mystery to anyone that I've got close friends who are still sim owners or admins of many different gorean sims over the past years. Those 'role play' sims still have to deal with 'life style' issues on a constant and nearly daily basis. I often was an admin in many different gorean sims myself...

It's also no secret that I was a lead story admin in ROIAF, considering I'm at liberty to explain I am now that the place closed it's doors a while ago (after a good 4 years). And you can entirely brush my comments under the rug, but the typical 'player issues' that happen in SL Gor are on an entirely different level than what goes on in other non-Gor RP sims.

I remember a while ago explaining to other admins that the 'player or RP problems' they have are a luxury compared to the stuff Gorean sims have to deal with.

Cliques and OOC conspiring RP was a big issue in ROIAF.
In Gor however... the issues usually are along the lines of:
- People godmodding & being verbally aggressive towards other players, breaking the rules 'because they're gorean men and the others are just dumb sluts who should shut up', thought emotes, insulting emotes, breaking post order to avoid consequences etc.

They're issues on completely different levels. In Gor, no matter how good the sim was: whether it was Kaelus or Tarnwald or Ar or Thentis, as an admin you constantly had to deal with RP issues typically caused by people who were new to RP or unwilling to 'improve' their RP habits.

Maybe you'll just never agree to the idea that RP in Gor is just different gradations of shit, and arguably even if you include GoT sims into that spectrum they'd also just be a different gradation of shit, but they'd be the least dark at least... in my opinion



Let me also paint a very simple picture:
My opinion: The SL Gor community's RP is factually much worse and less enjoyable than ROIAF, no matter what sim you try to attain it in.
Your opinion: It's the same shit and issues everywhere, no matter the genre or community.

Which is curious. You don't strike me as someone who believes in the notion that everyone is equal. Even in my WoW guilds I can objectively observe different levels of 'shittiness'. Some guilds are extremely unorganized who can't get things done properly, with openly offensive people and attitudes, other guilds are very organized who get things done months faster than other guilds, where offensive people and attitudes get banned.

Why would it be any different with RP communities? Why would the Gorean RP community be exactly the same as other RP communities?

[Tantus]

Let me also paint a very simple picture:
My opinion: The SL Gor community's RP is factually much worse and less enjoyable than ROIAF, no matter what sim you try to attain it in.
Your opinion: It's the same shit and issues everywhere, no matter the genre or community.

Which is curious. You don't strike me as someone who believes in the notion that everyone is equal. Even in my WoW guilds I can objectively observe different levels of 'shittiness'. Some guilds are extremely unorganized who can't get things done properly, with openly offensive people and attitudes, other guilds are very organized who get things done months faster than other guilds, where offensive people and attitudes get banned.

Why would it be any different with RP communities? Why would the Gorean RP community be exactly the same as other RP communities?

You're a better person than I since you credit the standard SL Gor community with being roleplayers. I don't. I'm not that generous. The blend of Lifestyle, noobery, romancing and everything wrong with SL Gor happened from the beginning of BTB. Before then you could still find immersive roleplaying in GE.

The majority of SL Gor are community sims, the same as you'll find across the grid in MC, civil war, urban and historic themed venues. Even GoT community sims exist, but I've never referenced them as the example of GoT roleplayers. Unless I was trolling a forum, why would I?

Out of actual Roleplaying sims, fantasy, sci-fi, survival, urban, GoT and even Gor, they all experience largely the same issues. Granted, you won't have random lifestyle guys wandering in, demanding slave exams. But you will host a large proportion of players who's sole motivation is to find their IC soulmate, in any genre. No one confesses to seeking online companionship so they call it Longterm Storyline RP.

There are very few sims where the players took charge and by their own volition evolved the sim's lore, by their actions, drove the sim's story. Very few sims. And this is where I feel every setting should begin, by providing players with the background, tools and encouragement to carry a theme forwards. It shouldn't have to resort to a handful of admins writing the weekly events whilst the bulk of players float around online relationships.

If I was in SL and someone says:
This new RP sim has really high traffic : "Doesn't matter."
This new RP sim has an intense application process : "Doesn't matter."
This new RP sim has an amazing background : "Doesn't matter."
This new RP sim promises an evolving storyline : "Doesn't matter."
This sim's players are evolving the story without admin involvement : "That's interesting, I'll take a look."


But on to the future, with the advent of Animesh finally making NPC involvement possible, some genres will evolve to incorporate PvE elements too. Something I've always felt the scene was missing. Since the trouble with PvP and conflict roleplaying is, 5% of the players win, 95% lose.

In PvE, everyone can be a winner and work it into their character's roleplaying. And I think it would be fun to do a PvE raid with a small group of people roleplaying our way through it.