beckyh2112 | Nexus RPG Frustrations

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Nexus RPG Frustrations

I'm still pretty frustrated over something that happened around Christmas in our current plotline.

Background for those who are interested: Assorted Transformers have been turned human and sold into slavery. Since the player for some of the very vital characters had to take a hiatus due to RL, a lot of the roleplaying action is going on among the people trying to rescue the slaves and the people trying to get the machine rebuilt so they can restore the transformed Transformers to their proper bodies.

Christmas Day, the remaining active player of an extremely vital Transformer-turned-human hit a Magic Reset button on her character. She has demonstrated no interest in trying to reconcile her character being reset with our ongoing plotline.

And this is frustrating as hell since at least one of the characters involved in rescue operations wouldn't be involved if it weren't for her character. Hell, one of the utterly major plotpoints wouldn't have happened at all without her character.

But she just... backed out. Because she couldn't keep up with the roleplay.

WE'VE GOT AN INDEX! An index for every post in the RP!

Except, of course, it's not because she can't keep up. It seems to be because one of her friends got annoyed at the rest of us and the way we roleplay. Apparently, we should slow down and wait for people who are not online to get a word in. Yeah, and when did you guys do that during the Void Saga? I seem to recall most of that being, oh, about seven of us, and we sure as hell didn't wait and see if anyone else wanted to get involved. But look, three of that seven are now complaining because other people are going on with their roleplays when they aren't online.

I guess if I weren't used to the concept that if you miss something, you miss something and should just catch up, I might be more sympathetic. But there's a big part of me that believes if you've got to go to bed, you should do something to make sure your character can be limbo while other characters play on. They shouldn't have to break up their gaming because you can't be on; that makes things not fun for them.

But maybe I'm an entitlement bitch. That's always a possibility.

ETA assorted clarifications: Yes, there was more to her resetting than her friend not liking some of the rest of us. I can understand and accept those other reasons, but it annoys the hell out of me that I have find out about them from a third-party.

I am angry over her leaving. I am really angry over the majority of us getting handed an excuse instead of the actual issues being brought up. I am not a mind-reader. I'm not even especially text-empathic. I'm willing to bet most of the rest of us aren't. If you don't say something, then other people won't know about it and nothing will be fixed.

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I think the thing is that we DID say a thing, at least some of us did. I've seen logs of arguments that ran until about 6am my time where people tried to sort things out. I've tried to talk to people myself. I've voiced my own discomfort/wish to quit more than once, and what I mostly got was a cascade of Galvatron-fangirling in response (for which, okay, it's nice to be appreciated, so thanks guys.)

What I personally can't handle is the timezone issues, the upset friends, the presence of players and characters who actively frustrate/annoy me and my charas*, and the fact that I come off the long sessions feeling physically ill from ignoring my body's and mind's needs to keep pace and hold twelve IM convos at once. Galvatron may be able to split his attention that many ways, but I'm only human. I can't. And much as I do enjoy online RP, I can't afford for it to become the only thing I do with my free time. My creative abilities, and the rest of my RL, can't stand that strain.

*note: I don't like RPing conflicts when I feel like I can't agree with the player and my chara can't agree with theirs at the same time, no matter whose fault it is (and I'm willing to accept it may be mine). I wind up feeling like I've lost my grip on the situation, and on levelheadedness, too much.

If you're referring to what I'm think you're referring to, that argument happened extremely early in the plotline. I thought, at the time, that while it wasn't resolved in a way I found personally satisfying, it was resolved. Maybe I was wrong. I'm extremely good at being wrong about that sort of thing.

And again, I thought the two of us had more or less worked out our issues.

I've never advocated people pushing themselves past their limits in games. Taking time is not a terrible, evil thing.

But I do think that if you're going to leave a game, you should find a graceful way to do it. That's why one of the things I've always said about removing Elita is that I would do it "after the scene/plot/rollercoaster" was finished. Because it's not fair to the other players for her to just vanish with no explanation.

This is why I'm currently working out how to gracefully, IC-ly remove my lot and anyone else who wants to quit, since conveniently most of the doubters are on the same warship at the moment...

I believe there's been some efforts to track you down and ask if we could NPC your guys.

I was checking LJ (on and off, admittedly) and reading my email, I'm surprised nobody got hold of me...

Anyway, okay, for the record:

- Soundwave and the Cassetticons are free to NPC if people need/want to. I do not mind, though I will be hanging on to their journals for future projects.

- Galvatron, Cyclonus, Scourge and the Dis are NOT free for NPCing (though if anyone wants to start their own alternate versions, of course, they could always do so) and are going to be taken out of the game, IC, by me at some point in the next day or so. Anyone who is with them at the moment who wants to keep playing will be returned to the vicinity of Autobot City to pick up where they wish. Anyone who doesn't wish to keep playing and is aboard the Dis can be taken out in the same move. It's not as though the plot can't be tied up in their absence, and you'll get some unoccupied bodyshells that might make fun target practice out of it into the bargain. ;)

Is this okay with you?

*panics*
*hugs Rath*

Don't kill them!! I hope to see them again someday, RP with them sometime. I hope you aren't giving up on playing them forever! I feel like I came in too late for half the fun. I hope you just mean to extract them from the current plot and RP, and send them on a well-deserved vacation... but do what you have to do.

((I've got two dead Seekers panicking in my headspace. Duskwing's moping I can handle, but Starscream is climbing the wall at the thought he might be stuck with trying to lead the Decepticons, for all that he once wanted it so badly. Poor guy just wants to be able to rest in peace, without his strange sense of duty driving him back.))

Also, Rath, need to know how Boots wants to handle Cardoom. He's there with Soundwave & the Cassettes, and presumably he needs to head out with the Dis crowd, somehow, as I understand Boots wants out, too.

I want 'Doom out as soon as possible, to be honest, and he's definitely not an NPC-able character. I can talk to Rath about having him get picked up somehow.

We were considering that earlier idea of simply saying that the Dis turned up on Tau Ceti shortly after the Express. That way, both ships're in the same place, so people who want to leave can say they swapped onto the Dis in order to be able to do so. That's one idea, at least.

Sounds workable, yeah. So long as I can get him out without throwing anyone else's RP schedule out of whack, then that should cover all the options for avoiding any more of this type of thing. *nods*

As far as handling the actual rescue/escape/etc scene, do you want to play it that Cardoom just gets separated from the others? As you may remember, Duskwing has already turned the humans loose from their collars and cage.

Or do you want Daniel to get separated from everyone else, so we can remove NPC'd Soundwave and the cassettes from play, too? That's going to make the Decepticons aboard the Express unhappy, but I don't think there's a solution to the current mess that will make everyone happy.

I'm happy for Soundwave et al to go out of play, but if people want to keep them, then I'm slightly-less-happy-but-willing for them to be NPC'd. Call it among yourselves?

I'll certainly have it declared that the Dis picked up 'Doom. But can we avoid having to play any encounters between the two ships, plz? I don't have the stamina left to cope with a Galvatron-vs-Octane argument...

Octane has no desire to argue with Galvatron--he prefers being a triple-changer fuel tanker to being a fluffy pile of ash, thank you. And ghosts scare the slag out of him, even when they like him.

He has no desire to be in the same solar system with the Dis, either--having the Express do an impression of a Corellian cruiser shot by the Death Star doesn't appeal to him.

Okay.. just discussed this with the folks who are awake. Proposal: I really don't want to NPC Soundwave & Co, so think you should pick them up with Cardoom. We're planning on some massive chaos groundside to justify them getting separated. Also planning on someone sending the heavy guns--a Quint or other battlecruiser--after the Express, to explain why Octane had to bug out without everyone. We get Daniel. You get a message as you come in-system from the fleeing Express, which has a battlecruiser shooting at it, begging you to grab the people they had to leave behind.

If someone wants to join the Express's roster at Tau Ceti, I suppose some of the fliers could have gone ahead of the Dis to "rescue our people", and gotten caught in the chaos groundside--and have to bug out with the guys from the Express.

Yes/No/Discussion?

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ravenology.livejournal.com - 2007-01-04 22:49 (UTC) - Expand

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navigatorsghost.livejournal.com - 2007-01-05 09:39 (UTC) - Expand

*cuddles* You may remember I already DID kill one of them and it didn't even slow him down, so don't worry. ;) I won't hurt them, they just don't want to be in this game any more than I do. I'll be on hiatus after this for a while, but they will be around again sometime.

*is relieved*
*has a crush on Rath and her Galvatron*

Starscream: Now I know he really hates me! He's going to leave me to run this goat rodeo on Earth...

Galvatron: *blinks a bit at the crazy human*

;)

(Hee. Sweat, little Seeker, sweat...)

Regarding the Unicronians...

I hope you just mean to extract them from the current plot and RP, and send them on a well-deserved vacation... but do what you have to do.

Yeah, that. Not to put any demands on you (main thing is you're happy), but I know I would miss them if they were gone forever.

For the record, I wouldn't mind knowing exactly who wants to go and who doesn't. I don't want anyone to have to leave but I can't make anyone stay either, and I'm not trying to. But I do think that at least knowing who I might have to lose would be better than this awful uncertainty that's making me paranoid. At least then I'd know what I'm dealing with, and maybe it'd help me adjust quicker when it actually happens instead of coming as a shock...

*note: I don't like RPing conflicts when I feel like I can't agree with the player and my chara can't agree with theirs at the same time, no matter whose fault it is (and I'm willing to accept it may be mine). I wind up feeling like I've lost my grip on the situation, and on levelheadedness, too much.

*looks sheepish* I hope it's not me and Starscream causing you that particular upset. I'd adjusted to your interpretation of Galvatron being different from mine--hey, my interpretation of post-S3 Starscream is probably completely out-to-lunch by some standards, but it makes sense to me. I've learned that RP characters are not necessarily the same ones we see on the TV (or in the comics)--they are their own interesting personalities. Besides, I like your Galvatron a whole lot more than the canonical S3 one, or the comics one. (*fangirls you again*)

While I'm not Rath... yes, going by what I remember seeing, I can say that your Starscream differs from how I would see/write/play him, but that doesn't mean I can't find it interesting/enjoyable to see him in RP. If I wanted each and every character to follow my interpretation, I wouldn't RP at all; I'd just sit and write fic, know what I mean?

I think the thing is that we DID say a thing, at least some of us did. I've seen logs of arguments that ran until about 6am my time where people tried to sort things out.

See, I wasn't there for those arguments. *sheepish look* So, I'm sorry for falsely accusing people of not saying anything?

the timezone issues

About those... I think for the future, we (general "we") really should discuss whether in regards with RP that includes a good number of players from the UK/Europe, main RPing hours should still default to "what's convenient for the Americans."

In regards with everthing... I understand.

*with everything

I did find your Wheelie a bit edgy, but I was willing to accept it as just an alternative slant. *hugs* Makes sense what you say, though.

He was rather over the the top because I was getting annoyed with the people playing him. If we ever start moving again, I'll tone him down.

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