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Global Acknowledgement of Major Events
Need some help / hints

Background

This is going to be a bit vague because I am trying not to allude to anything specific.

I will start with a question for the playerbase.

When you see something "strange" in the IC world, do you assume that it is an IC anomaly or an OOC one?

In my case, I often assume that the underlying system is OOCly glitching out. In response I wait a couple of days to see if the issue resolves. If not, I usually submit a Service-Request and assume that the staff will get around to it when they have time.

Lately I have become aware of situations that might be driven by underlying IC mechanisms. These are situations that "a lot of people" (ambient population) would likely also be aware of. These are background systems that span the entire city, not systems related to a specific location (like a club or apartment).

Example

As a random example of the scope I'm talking about here, let's pretend that "the sky is purple."

For me, my assumption would be that there is something OOCly wrong with the MOO code that generates the sky. Maybe Johnny was working on custom colors and a variable got screwed up. Or whatever.

In "reality" the sky might "really" be purple. The purple sky is an IC situation being driven by an IC mechanism that characters can get involved with.

Problem / Request

It would be great if staff, via NPCs on SIC or in the world, could raise visibility of these situations.

My suggestion is that staff only do so in response to characters speaking of them. (Except in cases where a plot / mechanism seems to be too vague and staff feels the need to direct people's attention to it.)

For example, Character A says on SIC, "Holy hell, the sky is purple! I must have taken too much Lana."

Staff could chime in as an random NPC or two, "The sky IS purple! It's not the Lana." Or something along those lines.

Then players will know that the purple sky is something that they might want dig further into.

Adjunct

I know that this was vague. I do not want to speak directly of current IC situations. But if staff needs some clarification of the kind of things that I'm talking about, feel free to reach out.

I would suggest always erring toward presuming and treating such things as IC-driven unless it's -OBVIOUS- it's something gone @buggy. In the latter case, staff usually seem to shout to let people know to ignore something that's happening.

If in super doubt and it's something immediate, game breaking, plot-disrupting, etc. just xhelp and say, hey, is this a bug? should I @bug this?

Even if it happens to not be ICly driven, it creates some random chatter / RP, so run with it.

I’m really trying to think of something which “looks IC” and should not be treated as such.

Does the purple sky trace back? MAYBE something about that is not IC. Does the mag-lev get stuck and you see the $void when you look out the windows? Xhelp or @bug it.

Is the mag-lev simply not moving? It’s IC even if there could be a glitchy OOC reason for it. Have fun carjacking a Chexie to get around.

Is the purple sky against the Law? Post a huge fine and negotiate with Skywatch corpsec to hand over the perpetrator.

Same. Unless I am told otherwise or it's super duper obvious, it's always IC if my character perceives it. In my experience staff will tell you to treat it as if it was an IC event even if it was because of an OOC glitch - especially if it's been perceived by more than one character.

Sky turns purple? I have no idea if it's an OOC fubar or intentional but it doesn't really matter as far as RPing my character goes. They still saw a purple sky and will react accordingly. It's still good to @note it so the GMs are alerted in case they haven't noticed yet but I'll still tell chums about the messed up sky and speculate about decker attacks or corpie jokes. I'll even mention in the note what my character's thoughts are about it and what they have or will be saying about it.

Obvious exceptions are things like GMs using terminals in a room where you are, something likely to be a system issue that only my character has seen, things that come with tracebacks, things I can't possibly make up a reasonable IC excuse for no matter how hard I try. Unless I know that it's OOC and to be ignored based on past experience, I will @note it, explain that I'm not sure how to take it, request guidance and and keep quiet until I hear back or see how the game reacts.

I think I know the thing you're talking about. One of the times it was treated as an IC event and the other two or three I've seen it wasn't. It was confusing but it wasn't like anyone did it on purpose.