Idle Speculation: Lazy Role Call Edition

God dammit ..the idle speculation on the role called stopped after like page three -_-'

Idle speculation returned

Hey remember 1-2 years ago when the GMHs were investigating that meteorite with the weird mindbender side effects in the death cave and then someone 'spoiled' it OOC and they nuked the plot. I wonder if it's been over a year and they're ready to trot out a revamp of it? Seeeeeeeeeems like it.

I haven't got a clue what this is. Is there a thread/post about this somewhere?

I think there was some announcement on the GDB about OOC communication being bad and ruining plots and how they caught these 2 players and now they had to cancel the plot or something. Check the news/announcements on GDB. The gist of it though was there was a meteor strike, created a cave/cavern/underground spot, GMHs were all into trying to find metal or something out of it, why investigating the cave people got mindbender effects on them or something, Allanak was obviously interested in it, then it all got put on pause.

I remember Ath. He tried to keep an open line of communication between players and staff. Guess he got burned out with all the peanut gallery responses.

Well, part of the deal is that strict boundaries between IC/OOC have always been one of the defining features of the game.  Players who deviate from this have, at times, faced the worst types of punishments, and staff members who were "caught" or, if they were too "powerful" or useful to be called on their bullshit by producers/admins, "exposed" by the playerbase/former staffers for either exploiting IC info or letting OOC prejudices interfere with IC events... have at times been forced to step down because of the outcry.

After all, there should be zero double standards for staff/players when it comes to abusing/exploiting IC info.

Yes, the game is nonprofit, text-based, aging, etc.  No, it's not equivalent to troop movements, wikileaks, any of that.  But the very reason ArmageddonMUD has existed for so long is, despite shortcomings from individuals or groups, is because roleplay is strictly-enforced and an ideally very strict separation of the IC and OOC realms.

Like I've written before, my discussion of the game is limited to this board.  It hasn't always been the case - when I was a kid, I had an AIM list full of Arm players, was constantly on the Arm IRC channel, participated in semi-secret AIM groups of very veteran players, etc - but it is now.  I would say that the vast majority of what was talked about on those groups was benign - nothing that spoiled/revealed plots or any shit like that.

So, I don't have a problem with one person or a group of people talking about certain aspects of a free, text-based videogame OOCly, especially considering that, for some players at least, it tends to be one of their primary hobbies.  It seems natural that, if you're spending a lot of time on something, you would want to discuss it with others.  Take into account the fact that some Arm players or, going further, game aficionados in general, communicate/socialize online frequently more than they do IRL, and this point is reinforced.

But going back to the beginning of my post, one of the principles of Arm has always been an attempt at strictly separating IC/OOC info.  In my experience, it's hard to have everyday discussions about Arm without discussing what your character is doing, what other characters are doing, who is playing who, or anything similiar.  I mean, in my experience, it's just a very slippery slope for some people because they get excited about X and just HAVE to talk about it with their buddy.  Eventually, this leads to problems unless people police themselves heavily or are able to tell their buddy: Hey, I just don't feel like discussing X because it is way, way too IC for me (this likely happens far less than it should).  I feel as though lots of people lack that kinda fortitude, which is bad because it leads to OOC cliques organizing secretly and sharing IC info.  With the game the way it is now - everyone mostly playing in one location - it's an even smaller world; as a result, the effect is more pronounced.

Staff members sharing IC info with non-staff players or using it to benefit their own avatars, though, is where the problem becomes *really* bad.  It's one thing for a couple or group of players to discuss the game from their limited perspectives; it is another thing entirely when a staff member shares her bird's eye view of the game with a player in order to shape or guide IC events, especially when accountability or oversight is impotent/nonexistant.  In a game where separation of IC/OOC info is paramount, violation of this policy by the stewards of the game itself stands in stark contrast to what has made ArmageddonMUD attractive for so long and should not be tolerated.  Learning of breaches in this trust second-hand is disconcerting and serves only to foster mistrust/reinforce the player-staff divide.  Unfortunately, leaks or whistleblowers are usually the only way most players learn that such has happened/is happening.

tl/dr:

Players talking about the game OOCly is fine but a slippery slope due to the nature of the game, but current/former staff members discussing IC/OOC info with players is even worse because, in a game where IC/OOC boundaries are essential and in large part define the game as an entirety, the stewards, above all else, betray the entire premise of their game and its playerbase when they engage in such; it is cheating in a way far, far, far worse than, say, discussing code mechanics on unsanctioned forums.  The game is based around the separation of IC/OOC info, which is why, at least in part, people become overzealous or cult-like when that division is crossed, especially by members of staff.

Nyr's obvious OOC bias towards some players and how that manifested in the actual game, for instance, resulted in one of the worst player upheavals in Arm history, dwarfing outcries over Bhag/Hal activity despite the fact that the latter two's actions were more overtly linked to their own avatars' successes.  Though, Nyr wasn't exempt from this, as jcarter's story about Nyr's psionicist/Kurac seems to illustrate, for one direct example.