Remove OOC-Chat
If you're OOCing you're not roleplaying

That said... if people are actually using and enjoy OOC chat. I think it should be kept around. Just because you or I do not use or enjoy it does not mean that we need to be dictating its existence for other players.

However, I have seen folks come on and complain about life like to the point that if I heard them say that in real life and knew where they lived I'd have called 911 to do a wellness check on them.

I have played on muds with ooc and muds without ooc and I find that the ones without tend to have more engaged players actually playing the game.

90% of what we are doing when we are roleplaying is fashioning emotes or poses to display our character's style and message right? So sometimes I've even had to struggle to do that because it's a hot time in OOC and there is green text scrolling across like mad.

I do understand though that I could turn it off, but it makes me wonder if people aren't just logging in, oocing for a while, then logging off and getting the UE soak as if they were actually playing the game.

So I wouldn't say anyone is abusing ooc or whatever, and again, the staff are the only ones who can see player A logs on and actually DOES THINGS, or Player A logs in and sits in his cube/apartment and ooc's for an hour.

I think it's ultimately up to staff, but if I was asked to vote today, I'd vote no ooc and only gamehelp channel in hopes it would get more substance and action of character than substance and action of players via ooc.

Just my two cents.

The majority of the points that 0x1mm raised are accurate.

The cliques are real. I found that once I started getting along with players OOCly, I had more positive interactions with their characters ICly. Go figure.

I do feel like it is a detriment to the game. It exists as a blow off valve for people to destress and socialize.

I share the opinion that without it players would have to channel their energies into dealing with things ICly. It would also likely increase bleed pretty substantially.

My suggestion is to disable OOC chat for 6 months and see what happens. The amateur psychologist and social scientist in me is super curious.

My hypothesis is that we'd see a lot more aggressive and "negative" IC interactions, a few long term players deciding to take a break, and large increase in xhelps of staff having to arbitrate what would be objectively described as petty bickering.

Your last statement made the point that myself and others are making.

OOC chat keeps you engaged (with OOC chat).

Without it, you'd have to find other ways to stay engaged while waiting for people to login or whatever.

That would be a good thing.

Get people who want / need to socialize off of OOC and out onto the grid, into bars, etc

I'll preface this by saying I've been trying to word this as nicely as possible, so no offense is meant if any is taken. Words aren't my strong point, especially when hyped up on nap energy and sugar. These are also MY opinions, and I don't speak for the rest of the staff.

Simple solution, If you don't like it, don't use it. If you can't RP and block out the scroll, don't be on the channels that are giving you scroll.

Don't assume stuff if you've never been on OOC-Chat, similarly, don't speak for it if you haven't been on it in a year. It has changed a LOT from a year ago.

Don't assume it's OOC-chat that's taking up people's time if you're not on it and not sitting next to them IRL to see what they're doing.

From what I see personally, most of the people who are active in OOC-Chat are mostly always actively doing stuff IC.

As for feedback happening in OOC-Chat, I can understand that point. We do try to keep most ideas on the BGBB. Most of the time if there is a discussion on OOC-Chat it's someone presenting an idea before they put it in on BGBB, so stop being anxious that you're missing out. You're not. Most, if not all, people who took part in OOC-Chat, post about it again on the BGBB, but yeah, we do mostly keep ideas to the forums.

As for cliques and groups and IC being nicer between people? If you're putting that much effort into figuring out who's who? That's your fault and you should probably stop doing so.

I am defining issues with it that manifest outside of OOC-Chat and I directly experience despite the fact I don't use it.

I can see, in real time sometimes, players who are otherwise may be good roleplayers be more casual and unthematic and treat IC things as more gamey, or players who I know are otherwise very active players lapse into inactivity while they're online and then later see something on the boards about big OOC-Chat discussions/debates/memeing.

I see issues where I hear months later that some idea or game complaint with 1 forum reply was thoroughly discussed in OOC-Chat and got a staff response.

I see SIC go dead at peak hours with seventy player characters on SIC, and then see something later posted to the boards about a big OOC discussion.

I see what very much appear to be OOC memes/discussions/tones bleed into how players use SIC.

Do I know that at any given time any given issue is because of something on OOC-Chat? No. But I do notice a trend in the aggregate.

My point is it doesn't matter how its used, its existence alone is contrary to the design of making as much player engagement as possible an IC affair.

I entirely understand players wanting to have this channel, and consistently @voting to keep it. It's a significant advantage to any player to be plugged in to the staff-player discussion system and to foster OOC relationships, just as it would be a significant advantage to some players having their own Discord channel. But Sindome does not foster OOC community by design and I do not think it's an advantage to the game as a whole, especially when such strong efforts are made to limit this exact thing otherwise.

I also know I have a tendency to write novels on the boards and argue every point to the death, so I'll leave my thoughts on it there -- but these are things I've noticed not continuously, but with enough regularity over the last year or two that I do think it bears discussion.

I don't think it's outside the realm of common sense to know that removing the ooc content of the game would improve the interaction in the game. Or possibly just get people to log off versus lurking in a cube/apartment.

If you want a community somewhere or a chat room, it's 2020, you're not lacking options. You're here to log on and play the game ICly or not.

Stiza maybe review the BGBB rules on shitposting and constructive posts. I know it's your schtick but it's not helpful.

I should make a new thread about removing the forums for being toxic with that attitude :(

That's like saying Superman doesn't have to wait in traffic and flies, it has nothing to do with the general population of nobodies rolling around (Us).

And really, making assumptions about how it is today when you haven't been on it? And then making a whole post about your opinion based on a lack of information?

I've also seen people leaving OOC chat and coming back after, presumably because they get involved in serious RP and don't want to be disturbed by OOC chat. People can self police, I don't think you need to tear down a way for the community to casually socialize with just to get people to RP with you.

Just ask, people aren't going to say 'no i only ooc chat >:c' and not want to play the game with you.

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I can see, in real time sometimes, players who are otherwise may be good roleplayers be more casual and unthematic and treat IC things as more gamey, or players who I know are otherwise very active players lapse into inactivity while they're online and then later see something on the boards about big OOC-Chat discussions/debates/memeing.

I see issues where I hear months later that some idea or game complaint with 1 forum reply was thoroughly discussed in OOC-Chat and got a staff response.

I see SIC go dead at peak hours with seventy player characters on SIC, and then see something later posted to the boards about a big OOC discussion.

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So in this, you're saying.. Important conversations happen in OOC, and it distracts people briefly from a GAME They like to play. Which is a game.. That they can pick up and put down at their leisure to do other activities, such as discuss thignsi n the ooc channel. For you to think that because they play the game, that they should play it with you at all times, or play it the way you ask, is asinine and selfish. People have other things they like to do. And ooc chat is one of them. And we do have important conversations sometimes. I feel like it's a good source of feedback for the Staff as well, since it's instant and more easily discussed.

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I see what very much appear to be OOC memes/discussions/tones bleed into how players use SIC.

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This one really tickled me ugly. Because most of the time when OOC memes or tones end up bleeding into the game, It's not due to OOC chat, Trust me I spend a lot of time in OOC Chat, (and still find time to RP, mind) And most of the time when those memes bleed into sic, we groan about it, that it's not themely. What we don't do, is demand that sic be shut off because of one thing in it we don't like, or that we don't participate. I fully believe you are way out on a limb, or terribly salty about something to be wanting this. Or you really are that selfish that people can't play this game and also have lives outside of it, or directly adjacent to it in an ooc channel and be a little distracted from a.. and I stress again. GAME

2. I would guess I've spent less than half an hour total on OOC chat in my two+ years of tenure with Sindome. I knew it wasn't for me from the start - too much breaking of immersion for me, and I prefer to spend my time in xgame offering advice/learning things when I can. That said, I don't have anything to weigh in on here except as it pertains to useful information being missed (Which I can't confirm or deny either). I figure there's a fairly easy solution for that (If it doesn't exist already). It was said already that most major discussions end up on the BGBB anyway, so this might just be moot.

Create a forum section called OOC Topics under the Banter heading. Any major discussions that get a Staff response and/or could be useful to know about for the general population can check in here to see what they missed in the channel. I might even suggest they be locked from the start after the initial thread is created. Take what you read in OOC forum and check to make sure it isn't already being discussed in Ideas etc.

I frequently seem discussions turn ugly on the boards while discussions on the same or similar topics tend to proceed more amicably on OOC-Chat.

This is because over the last year or so a very large effort has gone into making OOC-Chat a less toxic place. Largely I think this has been successful but permeates less to the bgbb because there is less of a discourse built over time but instead post to post shouting matches.

I'm not saying OOC-Chat is perfect by any means but the secret ingredient is fucks given. It's a little childish and stupid, but then, so is Sindome. A good community cares about each other. I think if we all practice that - the rest will follow.

Especially when there seems to be rules and game content discussions happening in OOC-Chat, which isn't persistent, searchable, and able to be referenced by and to new players.

With that being said, I 100% agree that the extremely offensive and violently jarring nature of the theme and it's entirely up to the player-character in the question of where they go in-game. If there are areas of theme that you find offensive to your personal tastes, then you have the freedom of re-routing yourself around it and avoiding it altogether.

I have found some offense in the sexual orientation slang words in there, but it's really not the end of the world. Like a few other people have mentioned, I just gloss over it since I know it is what it is. But, now I want to go pop over into the ideas forum for...

I do not have any opinion about the content or current level of toxicity in OOC chat.

I think others have done a great job of emphasizing each individual's ability to self police the time they spend on it, or not.

For me there is a level of, I think cognitive dissonance with OOC chat. There are major prohibitions on OOC interaction riddled throughout the rules. BUT, here... have this channel where you can OOC all day long. It almost approaches the level of, "Do as I say, but not as I do." Either OOC communication is bad and counter productive, or it is okay. That said, life is not black and white and maybe OOC chat strikes the best compromise possible.

My experience has been that among other things, OOC chat and BgBB provide a pressure relief valve of sorts. They provide a place for people to do things like post memes about IC events, and gripe about issues they have with the game in an OOC manner.

I think removing them would result in one of two things. One, all of that energy that couldn't be channeled into passive aggressive memes (which admittedly have become less passive aggressive in the last year) and OOC venting would have to be dealt with in purely ICly ways. For example, the recent Purge discussion. When all was said and done, the community consensus seems to have been, "If you want to get any further into this topic, deal with it ICly."

The other thing is that people would be forced to just suck it up and deal with whatever they are unhappy with / wanting to gripe about. That having to suck it up and deal with it would lead to generally more angst and hostile, aggressive, themely RP. Nobody wants to be told to suck it up and deal with it, but that's more or a less a core tenant of the theme. Nobody wants to be told that they have to live in a depressing, depraved, craptastic environment that they have no escape from.

But that is exactly the reality that most of our characters live in. And every time we break that immersion, we do the game a disservice. I mean, it's good for our mental health. But it ultimately robs the game of its utmost potential. (Which is probably fine. This is a game, not some torture device. We can be 85% hardcore instead of 100% hardcore.) Life sucks, deal with. No OOC chat. Go cry a river into your rat noodles and kill someone. Boo hoo hoo. ;)

To me, OOC is a place for people to talk nonsense about Not Sindome. Good, Bad, it exists.

To me, if people want to chat about Not Sindome, they should go to Not Sindome.

Sindome should be Sindome. Harsh, oppressive, unwelcoming, dangerous, filled with angst, betrayal, murder.

Screw getting along with each other. Or if we do want to get along with each other, let's find ways to do it ICly.

One last point to address is the 'lack' of public RP. One of the issues that new players raise from time to time is the seeming lack of characters in clubs and bars.

Veteran players understand that being out of the apartment is dangerous and therefore venture out only when they have to. Of course there are exceptions to that rule. But in general, being out and about is risky.

Again, OOC chat is a relief valve. It gives players the ability to socialize and get that dopamine hit of human interaction without the risk of running into their arch rivals and others who want to take advantage of them.

In an attempt to keep the conversation constructive, I will ask everyone who has read this.

How would your experience on Sindome change if you could not communicate OOCly via chat and BgBB? Would it make you angry? Would it make you dislike Sindome? Would you spend less time logged in?

I find myself thinking of

"You've never had the urge to kill yourself, until now."

1. Synchronous chat is a richer communication method than asynchronous posting. The flow is different. More immediately interactive.

2. The content of OOC-Chat is not saved for all time. This may not seem important to some but it can be important to others. I kind of like having a place to chat OOCly where the things i say will not be on record forever.

3. OOC-Chat is in game. I personally prefer things that are in game. I'd rather not have to hop over to a discord chat or slack window or browser tab.

Ultimately, I am not a big fan of simply removing OOC-Chat. I would rather look into ways to try and address the concerns I see brought up here. But even that will be a challenge as we all have different priorities and preferences.

Be very specific please what you mean by this and what you're trying to say, because to say "xooc is meta" is to say that staff is complicit in rulebreaking by allowing that. I know you're not saying that so what ARE you saying?

Not being on xooc has not stopped the people who aren't in xooc from knowing everything about what goes on in xooc and being pissed about it.

How does that happen, without OOC communication some place else? Some place unmonitored? Some cliquey place?

Let's cut the hackusations garbage out.