The Tournament
Xenogears MUCK: OOC Messages: The Tournament
Ok, things haven't been going as smoothly with the TP as I had hoped they would go. The tournament wasn't actually done for an excuse for some of us to mindlessly fight each other, but to hopefully bring in some new prospects on certain things. I am happy that the new Kislev-Yggers thing and the attempted assassination of Shakhan, his removal from the throne, and such was all spawned from this TP, for this was the sort of thing I had tried to design it for. Since Shakhan had been the one to put the tournament together IC, the tournament has now been ICly cancelled due to his removal from the throne. Some participants wish to move on with other things they have had in mind. I also wish to do this and do not wish to hinder any of these new plot ideas. I hope none of you that did not get to your matches are sour about this, but hopefully all the things that have recently happened will spawn some excitement, eh?
I hope we all learned a wonderful lesson from this ordeal. Especially you, Jalon. If not, I shall reiterate said lesson:
1. Let's sending outline! There was no outline to the TP, so there was no way to...
2. ...Schedule! Yes, a schedule! It helps people to know what they're doing, and best of all, you wont have to be stressed waiting for someone who couldn't make it because they didn't know they had to. Scheduling is good. Move schedule. For great justice.
In conclusion, Jalon...please take people's advice when running a TP. Gods know how much i've attempted to help. I gave you sound advice, but oddly, I was soundly ignored.
Ah, well. Either way, don't take offense from this. I'm simply stating a point i've restated several times before, and I don't mean it offensively, despite my sarcastic way of pointing things out.
"Everyone says I was born a chicken...is that why the colenol is after me?!"
The tourney's off? So much for wandering around the desert in a daze, I better head back to Jasper. ^^; It's only been a month long leave of absence, right?
Anyways, sorry things fell apart. I feel somewhat down, as I was unable to meet the schedul on two occasions due to my marvelous life interfering. In any case, I might think about starting a TP soon, so I know how to set things up.
Casske: Schedule? Er...did you even read my post? There wasn't one X_x.
Hey Bart, give Jalon a break. I mean really, no one would take something like that in an offensive way. I never take it personaly when someone insults me in public X_x Besides, it isn't the easiest thing trying to organize anything with any of you. In reality, it is easier trying to fight a fish in a blinking contest (note to all: Fish don't blink!). So that's that. I must give credit to Jalon for organizing a plot with so many people as well as he did. No it wasn't a success but, trying to organize over three of you RPers at once is a nightmare. ^_^
What are you talking about? I'm giving Jalon sound advice, which is what I was doing from the start to help his TP along. If it came out like an insult, know that it wasn't meant to sound like that.
Also, Frankly, I don't quite go for the anonymous RPer-on-the-OOC-and-IC-Board thing. It helps to know who's supposed to be speaking their mind.
Come on out, we wont bite! Well, Archer might, but he's past that stage x_x. Whee!
"City folks? You're so anything. Go to the circus now."
Geez goodness, people! Get a grip. (>__<) The Tournament was a mess for multiple reasons, and that was one of them. But whining about it isn't going to change how it turned out, or what came of it.
Why don't we try learning from the mistakes we are shown for a change?
A Rather Irritated Domi
AAHH! My rant! My beautiful rant was killed! ;_; *Crams all of it into one ugly paragraph* Cut ME off, will you?! (All of this was intended to be crammed in the middle of those lines of my above post)
Yes, its hard as heck to get any large plot to work- I would know- I've run, and helped run, several successful and gruesomely unsuccessful TPs.
But the point is that I offered Jalon lots of sound advice, and so did others- things like scheduling, setting time limits for battles so they don't go all day, setting dates for specific battles, publicizing them, and possibly running the two different types of battling in two different arenas at the same time. Its called efficiency and organization- and may you all now realize what happens to plots without it. Do you realize that, at the rate that Jalon was going at (1-2 battles a week), it would have taken past September to finish?
It is possible, however, to make large plots work. For one, you take advice. Two, you take help from those who offer it and from the Wizards. Then you schedule huge amounts, and try to keep a constant level of communication between those involved, so any changes or important dates get out to those who need them.
Because the bigger the plot is, the more planning and scheduling it needs. Its hard to coordinate 20 people who need to be specifically told what to do. This is why you can't 'wing it'.
Its possible to do. And some people have managed it, with varying degrees of success. And if you want to run a plot like that, try asking for help from me, Luka and Khiea. And yes, it sounds like work. That's what TP planning is.
My dear Dominia, 'winging it' is what I do. ^_^
On a more serious note, however, I was listening to your advice. The problem was that by the time I was ready to act using it, I felt the TP had already gone out of my control. I am sorry for the way it turned out, but I believe its purpose was carried out.
Bart, I take no offense to anything whatsoever. I see nothing wrong with the way you are sarcastic about things. Anyway, I -have- learned from this experience, and after all, it was my first one to begin with. It was a completely new experience for me; one I enjoyed even through all the unnecessary stress I put myself through. ^^ Perhaps my dad was always right, I do make things harder than they have to be.
If there will be another TP I run, I'll be sure to start using some schedules. But, hopefully, it won't be something like this one was, and time limits and such won't be required.
Thanks to those of you that stuck with it, and lived through all my blind planning. ^_^
One more thing:
Perhaps I tried to do too much my first time around in leading a TP. I wanted to craft a plot that would allow pretty much any character to be involved in one way or another and one in which almost anything could happen. I wanted to have a large crowd with officials watching as well. I wanted things to happen, and things to spawn from the TP that would effect other things in the IC world. I suppose I should limit my sights when it comes to these things next time. Again, thanks for listening through all my rambling and I hope the tournament has not detered much.
BTW, the Aveh arena is built somewhat like a fortress and I can easily modify it to be so. If anyone wishes to change the arena to one, please contact me. I know Asher's had the thought of a headquarters for Cobalt Wing, so, Asher, if you'd like to do so, we could speak with one another about it and I can make certain necessary changes to it for you.
*whistles*
Oh anonymous RP~~~eeeeerrrr...come out, come out...i've got caaaaaandyyyy...
Come on Mr. Anonymous RPer...i'll be your best friend forever and ever...
...i'll give you lots of candy...
...i'll give you an arrogant and pointless opinion to crack down on?
Pleeeeeeeeeeeease come out? I set up this surprise party for nothing ;_;.
X_x
Brin!
How does that login feature work? I would appreciate it because, as it is right now, you could post as anyone, and no one would be the wiser.
I can sense how anonymous postings can be a problem... look people. We can all be civil here and not attack each other from behind a mask.
Domi
(By the way, that wasn't Domi. I was just making a case in point. Even the last board displayed an IP Address, so you could loosely-kind-of track someone... here, you have absolutely no clue.
- XenoTech)
Eee..IPs. IPs may deter people from using a board with an alt in case they might want noone to know that is one of their alts, and as hypocritical as that sounds, yes, it's true. Some people would rather not have people know that a character is an alt of theirs.
It'd be really nice if some people just stopped abusing such a neat feature to hide behind a veil while they make their (insult?) point.
Pleeeeease come out Mr.Anonymous RPer! I even baked you a cake! You HAVE to be important if I baked you a cake ;_;. It's chocolate iiiiiice cream cake...
Eeee, it's meeeeelting!
"The one with the glasses is Chaika. The other is Pooshka. That's right, there's no mistake."
Hm. There is a login feature I hope I won't have to enable, because maintaining passwords between characters, evil people registering other people's char names etc. would make it a complete nightmare. I like it this way. It's nice and flexible, people can post as NPCs and the like.
Sure, we get the odd anonymous poster, but hey, if they are being abusive, I can obtain their IP address, and I can just cancel the posting if it's upsetting people enough. I don't want to resort to that, since the above anonner was hardly being abusive. I haven't bothered trying to find out who it was, because:
1. People should be able to post anonymously, for the reason above.
2. Going by IP address is unreliable, given that a lot of ISPs assign a different IP every time you dial up.
3. I can't really be bothered just to satisfy someone's curiosity (Sorry, Bart! 
)
4. It's silly.
If enough people reeeeealy want me to, I can enable individual logins, and say, give someone moderator privs on the board to help me manage users. I REALLY don't want to do this, because :
1. It's a waste of bloody time!
2. It's a nightmare to organise, and resolve disputes between names.
3. I can't be bothered.
4. I don't want to give anyone moderator access, since it makes information available about my account, and this server, that I don't want anyone I don't trust knowing, and I mean trust-them-to-correctly-tie-the-bungee-cord trust.
In short, sorry but no.
Uhh, yeah. For anyone who thinks I'm the stupid, mindless, anonymous poster...I'm not, considering how I don't use ^^
Uhh, yeah. For anyone who thinks I'm the stupid, mindless, anonymous poster...I'm not, considering how I don't use ^^, ^_^, or X_x
I dunno... I'm just leery of the ease of spoofing someone else's name is here. It would be easy for anyone to post a message as Dominia or Xenotech and say something rude, offensive, or controversial, and then there goes the reputation... no matter how much you apologise for that, you know that there's going to be SOMEONE out there who thinks of you just a little differently.
Yes, IP's do change. Other people have static IP's. Other people have hundreds of machines behind one static IP. So it's not extremely reliable, but it's like saying, "Well, my windows are unlocked, so I may as well leave the front door unlocked too."
I'll probably make all my announcements in-MUCK (Sorry, the MUCK is down), or see if I can start an E-mail list (which no one will join, of course) because I don't trust this board to make any official statements.
Well, there's always that header that pops up when you sign on In-MUCK. That'd be perfect for In-MUCK announcements, so you and Domi can use that and we can all be at ease.
I still want "me" to come out though. I baked him/her an Ice Cream Chocolate cake that melted, but I put it in the freezer yesterday so it's ok. *hears a thump from behind him* Guh? Maison? Er...you ok? *moaning* ....I think i'm gonna throw that cake away....
"CATS: All your base! CRITICAL DAMAGE! CRITICAL DAMAGE! ...mooooooove....ziiiiiiiiiig... *explode*. Fighter: Wow, he's even weaker than you are! Black Mage: Again, shut up."
Sorry for that second post. I kinda got cut off when I accidentally pressed the "post" button. Again, apologies.
(This still doesn't classify as stupid)
That's.. (X_x) Creepy! All right. ^_^ I think we've all made our point on how this place can be abused. But its all right.
I wont use the OOC board for any important announcement. If it -is- important, I'll just use the webpage, as I've always done. Or change the MOTD, figuring I can still FTP into the server. ^_^;
Either way, this place will just be for OOC random babble. And if anyone has posted something in your name, please e-mail Brin and tell him what's up.
Even though I shouldn't make promises in other people's names. ^_^; But Brin, you've got a 'message delete' option, don't you? So if anyone posts something in someone else's name, the real RPer can have that message removed.
Domi
That's really abuseable as well.
Someone says something I don't like, let's deleting! I hate abuse ;_;.
"I AM ERROR."
Well, let's just say I'll only delete stuff that's deliberately offensive, or whatever. There's really no point in coming up with a policy, I can see it being dealt with on a case-by case basis. Even if it is only offensive to one person, and upsets that one person, then it has no business being here, however true. If you have a gripe with someone, take it to mail.
Oh, and by all means, email me as Domi suggests. Even though IP addresses are unreliable, they do give a rough guess at who _didn't_ post stuff (e.g. a non-AOL-user won't be posting from an AOL account etc.). Faked posts are usually spottable, anyway.
Just as a note, Bart, it'd be more like.. If someone posts something in your name, you can e-mail Brin and say that its not you who posted it. After all, e-mail addresses don't change- I'll always be DominiaSol@hotmail.com. And no one posing as me could send an e-mail from that address. ^_^ So if someone did say something in my name, I could write from my addresses or whatever to set things straight.
Although I agree with Brin- it should be handled case by case. ^_^ No need to set up elaborate rules. They'd probably only encourage people to try and fake things like that, anyway.
Domi