Author Topic: Metagaming or not metagaming (Read 247 times)

DMOE · « **Reply #20 on:** November 17, 2006, 01:36:02 am »

Quote

Hellblazer - 11/17/2006 9:27 AM
Quote
Weeblie - 11/17/2006 4:17 AM (and, no, I don't think being in the same guild alone justifies that, as that would feel more like a way to bypass the rules than keeping in the "RP spirit")
Just to be sure this is not mis interpreted, what i meant there was that, them being teamed up on outings to gather materials for the guild would be the rp reason to go where they go, which we rarely take someone, at a place we would feel it would be to dangerous for him or her to be. And is it not also a server rule not to metagame? or am I just delusional here
To haras, i thank you for clarifying what you wanted to say, I can understand what you are trying to say on how to apply the ooc information that you optained in a rp fashion.

Being in the same Guild is not a good enough RP reason if they ONLY way the characters involved in the trip could reach that CNR is because of the High Level character. In that case the High Level character should get the CNR for the Guild, possibly asking for the help of other high level friends they have.
Not to say that if the other Guild members could reach it without the High Level that the High Level shouldn't accompany them or that OCCASIONAL trips to places that can be only reached with the High Level are a problem.
Also it is important to RP on the actual trip too.
It is a server rule not to metagame but nor should you break another server rule not to metagame. Again...applying some common sense to the rules should help.

Chongo · « **Reply #21 on:** November 17, 2006, 01:45:17 am »

Quote

Hellblazer - 11/17/2006 1:53 AM Personaly, and I dont think I am the only one, I would rather see stricter results for those who are doing the powerleveling, than seing the community punished. For someone who only hangs out with the same people, that are teh same levels they are, its no biggy. But for those, Myself included, who have a wide range of people which I hang around with, some are low levels, some are High, this pauses a problem. Even more so, when it could affect the team work we have.

Unless there's a system in place to catch this, it's a subjective wild goose chase and I think the staff could be better served putting their efforts elsewhere. Why? Because I think it's fairly proven, and stated again and again: people who don't play in the spirit of the server fade out. Why? Because individuals who don't jive with the party leave the party. Sure they drink a lot, take their clothes off and streak around the house, but after seeing that the AARP party isn't hip to skinny dipping, they shrug and leave. Even the most stubborn figure it out after time. Very little harm done except for a few giggling old ladies. Ok no more metaphors, sorry. Though the mere mention of needing results in this area causes GM reaction on an individual basis, and that's just not fair on all sides. Stop the powerlevellers! I know your initial intent with this wasn't along these lines, but it's degraded into it on some level. Posts like these force the staff to respond, and I think it's a detriment to both their efforts and the community's as well. I've never seen one ounce of objectivity in a claim as such, just pointed fingers at the man behind the curtain gaining fast levels at a rate the individual accusing is unaware of because they just don't have any facts to support their suspicions of fault. The little research I've done on the matter... most of the finger pointing doesn't hold water. It really just doesn't exist on the scale a lot of folks seem to think it does. I also suggest anyone wanting to talk about metagaming, powergaming, and powerlevelling look up the definitions with some vigor on the internet. Terms get sprayed a lot in directions they don't always fit. That said, sorry about the woes bud, it's hard for anyone to be 100% evenhanded all the time and it stinks when you're on the wrong end of it. After a good bit of pontificating on these sorts of things, I've found the old hands on the staff just say 'let it be', and I'm starting to think they're right. Just keep rolling with it and things settle themselves. Dunno.

Hellblazer · « **Reply #22 on:** November 17, 2006, 02:01:28 am »

Sorry dmoe, you probably posted your post while i was editing it. We do not take someone ( from the guild) that is not strong enought to a place he should not be. IE, we would not take out a level 7 char to the iron hills. Mainly due to the rp of us putting his/ her life in danger. When I say that we gather up together with the low levels, i mean on minstone. places that they could get mostly by themselves. And our lowest level being 9, that brings up a few places on minstone they could reach by themselves (teaming up with the other people close to their levels)
P.s. it may be a bad tendency, but i have the tendncy of adding things to an existing post rather than post multiple times small post.

DMOE · « **Reply #23 on:** November 17, 2006, 02:10:35 am »

Quote

Hellblazer - 11/17/2006 10:01 AM Sorry dmoe, you probably posted your post while i was editing it. We do not take someone ( from the guild) that is not strong enought to a place he should not be. IE, we would not take out a level 7 char to the iron hills. Mainly due to the rp of us putting his/ her life in danger. When I say that we gather up together with the low levels, i mean on minstone. places that they could get mostly by themselves. And our lowest level being 9, that brings up a few places on minstone they could reach by themselves (teaming up with the other people close to their levels)
P.s. it may be a bad tendency, but i have the tendncy of adding things to an existing post rather than post multiple times small post.

Ah but as the AI averages out the party lvls and then creates the spawn you will be facing larger/tougher spawns due to having the High lvl along which generally results in more XP and as such also needs to be considered

Hellblazer · « **Reply #24 on:** November 17, 2006, 02:21:55 am »

I agree abou that to an extant. I'll take the example of Dregar for this one. I foudn out that until you get to level 10 on dregar, you do not get teh full xp that you would get, let say if you were level 9. Instead you receive less. Then when you hit Level 10 you get the amount of xp your supose to. I noticed that when I saw that the Giants i was killing with some friends at level 9 was giving me 190 to 200 xp was now giving me 232 and more at level 10. Then at level 11 the xp started reward started to dropped.
I would assume that such a system is applied also on minstone. Where about if you are lower than what the spwn are made for you get less xp up until you are the right level. In the short time this does not affect the maths, but I agree that if reapeated, in the long time the numbers of spawns will give more xp even if you are not getting the full reward of xp you would be getting if you were at the right level.
But then again, for the few trips the lvl 20 has been with us, we did not see any diference in strenght or numbers than without her. Ie the bear island or the haven mines, still has the same numbers of foes and the same kind, in all perspecive with or without that player.

Acacea · « **Reply #25 on:** November 17, 2006, 02:41:29 am »

Had long rant. Thread gave headache. Will post at next dredging of topic. Likely less than month.

Harlas Ravelkione · « **Reply #26 on:** November 17, 2006, 02:46:58 am »

@ Chongo:
The magic word here is perception. The GM (which could have been any member of the Team) probably noticed the level spread and send a slight hint regarding that fact - nothing more.
From what has been said in the posts this player took this hint/reminder/warning or whatever you want to call itpersonally and spoke to his guild mates about the matter, which ended in a small uproar. I bet that was never the intention of the GM. Perception turned this into something that was never intended in the first place. This happens far too often, and will continue to happen due to the fact that we are all human and the media we use is text only. It is dificult to express yourself clearly in such a media.
Remember that We in the GM Team are not here to police the players. We would all hope that warnings and reminders would not be necessary, but sadly they are. We are also human, like everyone on this server and we are here to enjoy ourselves, like the rest of you.
Harlas

IceDragonDuvessa · « **Reply #27 on:** November 17, 2006, 03:15:07 am »

If you are actually RPing while you are out bashing GM's are not going to talk to you about the level spread. I have seen this thread far too many times and to be honest I am really sick of seeing this stuff as it generally turns out the poster just wants to be argumentative and tries to turn everything everyone says back on them trying to get a simple "Yeah You're right" out of someone so that their behavior can be gratified.

Its been stated repeatedly and will continue to be stated... RP all the time... everyone... and GMs won't think you are out powerleveling. I am not sure why this argument has to pop up every other month.

Dorganath · « **Reply #28 on:** November 17, 2006, 05:12:45 am »

At the risk of sounding short, this issue crops up far too often.
Just like defining what "good RP" is or is not, it simply is not practical to establish a finite list of guidelines and provisos regarding who can associate with whom, who can go where and when and why....short of writing some 20-page missive that no one will read...or which will be nit-picked to death as this issue is already.
There are no rules about association. None. A character can associate with any other character freely. Anytime, anywhere. The only thing we have ever asked is that people do not intentionally drag people through more challenging areas for the purposes of allowing those lower-level people to gain XP at a faster rate. How do you know? Well, Harlas suggested some very good ways to make it an IC distinction rather than an OOC one. If for some reason that didn't sink in, I strongly suggest to re-read it.
In every, every case, RP is the key. Does it make sense for your character or the other character(s) to do a thing? That is the question which should pervade every action...every decision. Regardless of what the relationship of the characters may be, it makes absolutely no sense for a group of 18-25's to take a level 5 through the Dungeon of Scarabs on East. I don't care what you say...unless it's a GM-led event, there's no rational justification for doing that. For similar reasons in RL, one would not take a child...or even an inexperienced adult...into the front line of a war zone. If it were RL, the only probable outcome would be death.
DMOE said it right and early on:

Quote

...generally a bit of common sense as to higher and lower lvls traveling together goes a long way...

This applies to many things, from ill-advised dragging of low-level characters through XP-rich environments to the frequent and apparently unappologetic use of // OOC chatter in the Party channel.
I don't think we've ever asked the players to do or remember things that are too difficult. I really fail to see why this issue confounds so many people.
Oh, and this is one of those things we as the GM Team should not have to police. We have enough to do already, and watching every group that goes anywhere to see if the RP is appropriate for the grouping takes time away from interacting with players in a positive manner.
But have no fear. We notice such behavior, and yes, it does impact decisions like whether or not someone can qualify for WL status.

Pen N Popper · « **Reply #29 on:** November 17, 2006, 05:14:44 am »

Joe, a level one fighter, asks Sue, a 20th level cleric to help him down the crypts. Sue agrees...
Scenario 1
Joe and Sue make all haste through the crypt, she smiting and turning the undead, Joe gathering gold and knuckles and scant XP (due to level difference). Upon returning to the surface, Joe asks Sue about the next quest and they depart.
Scenario 2
Joe attempts to make all haste through the crypts but Sue walks in detect mode. In the first encounter Joe gets into trouble, Sue saves him. She then points out some tactics he should use, blesses his weapon perhaps, and chatters on about her deity. Sue managed to turn what would have been a 15 minute haste quest into an hour long RP event. Upon returning to the surface, Sue declines the offer to go onto the next quest.
After the trip, which experience do you think Joe would write about in his journal?

It's really not complicated or difficult to understand. Just try to keep the spirit of the server. With the large number of level 20 and above PCs, there is certainly going to be interaction with lower levels. As the high level player, you have the chance to set the tone for the trip.
With great power, comes great responsibility.

LynnJuniper · « **Reply #30 on:** November 17, 2006, 05:44:03 am »

Quote

Pen N Popper - 11/17/2006 8:14 AM
Joe, a level one fighter, asks Sue, a 20th level cleric to help him down the crypts. Sue agrees...
Scenario 1
Joe and Sue make all haste through the crypt, she smiting and turning the undead, Joe gathering gold and knuckles and scant XP (due to level difference). Upon returning to the surface, Joe asks Sue about the next quest and they depart.
Scenario 2
Joe attempts to make all haste through the crypts but Sue walks in detect mode. In the first encounter Joe gets into trouble, Sue saves him. She then points out some tactics he should use, blesses his weapon perhaps, and chatters on about her deity. Sue managed to turn what would have been a 15 minute haste quest into an hour long RP event. Upon returning to the surface, Sue declines the offer to go onto the next quest.
After the trip, which experience do you think Joe would write about in his journal?

It's really not complicated or difficult to understand. Just try to keep the spirit of the server. With the large number of level 20 and above PCs, there is certainly going to be interaction with lower levels. As the high level player, you have the chance to set the tone for the trip.
With great power, comes great responsibility.

I couldn't be in more agreement. Great Post PnP! A lot of common sense does in fact go a long way. Sometimes it is inevidable that higher or lower levels be paired up both alone and in a GM questing environment, it is up to the character base as a whole to figure out what works for them -given what works for the server-. That is the main point that needs to be made. As harlas said: Looking at the challenge rating to figure out an acceptable way of rping level difference is fine. The RP of Layonara is not supposed to have 'defined' levels (but lets face it, everyone loves hearing that level up noise) but your character would be able to tell when another character is way less experianced. It's up to the higher level character to either pick these things up, or to , as PNP said make the trip a memorable rp experiance AND not make a habbit of it. What people seem to be forgetting is that it is also up to the lower player characters to realise the expertise of their higher level counterparts and play within the server rules as well. I know its really tempting when making a new character to want to run really fast through the standard quests. Don't. They may become less 'standard' if you have a little fun with them. So All in all. What they said

Weeblie · « **Reply #31 on:** November 17, 2006, 05:56:14 am »

Oh, yes...

Sounds like the times when the Hlint Crypt quest takes 2+ hours... that's kind of neat!

jrizz · « **Reply #32 on:** November 17, 2006, 01:01:09 pm »

PnP hit it on the head. I have done things in alomast that exact way.

Another thing I do when asked to help a PC much lower then myslef is say "well I will come with you but I left my weapons and armor at home I only have this dagger with me" this way you can teach some basic tactics and still be there to save thier butts if it gets out of hand.

lonnarin · « **Reply #33 on:** November 17, 2006, 01:34:41 pm »

Frodo was a powergamer. Running around with a legendary wizard, an elven archer prince and the son of Gondor? EGADS! They even handed him a mithral chain shirt and a vermin slaying shortsword, with a ring of invisibility at the very dawn of the movie. When he ran off into Mordor with Samwise and Smeagol by himself, that's when the party was made to disperse accoring to challenge rating, lol.