IRL and lack of presence in game world

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S'rrt
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IRL and lack of presence in game world

Post by S'rrt »

I was writing this into the "What are you thinking about now?" thread but figured it might be a position that other players share with me.

Lately I've had moments of sadness and even slight depression whenever I think about Illarion. Not because of how the game is but because of how little time I can dedicate to it in comparison to my previous years of playing. I've got a full-time job, a partner, a pet and various engagements. Despite all this, I want to do even more with my life; not only play Illarion but also aspire to do things that I'm building up a foundation to do. The bottom line is, there simply isn't enough time or energy to do what I want, and what little activity I still have with S'rrt K'shire IG, it feels forced and stressful.

I want to feel comfortable in deciding when I log back on to participate in the game events, or general RP, not like I'm expected to "catch up" to a previously held status. I may be completely wrong here but I have been under the impression from the way the Community Managers and the elite RPers speak that no matter what happens, IRL is more important and everyone should feel comfortable in returning whenever they want. This is not how I feel lately. What I feel instead, while looking at the community, is pressure. It's pushing me away.

Feel free to correct me here as I'm probably easily affected by very few examples, but when I see IC antagonism that is completely fuelled by a player's absence, it doesn't drive me to be more active, it depresses me. I'm glad that some players have more time to put into the virtual world, I really am, but I wish there was universal understanding toward players who have reasonable, and sometimes serious, IRL reasons for not having the "required" presence with their characters. I personally would never let a player's well-expressed lack of presence be a reason for character antagonism, nor expect participation where the player or their character has not promised such. Does that make me a bad roleplayer? A bad Illarion player?

Please, someone let me know. Am I doing something wrong?
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Matron
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Re: IRL and lack of presence in game world

Post by Matron »

Real Life is a perfect excuse for being absent ingame and I am happy you are doing that well, no questions there.

(The following "you"s are not referring to anyone specific)
However, and I want to point out that I am not pointing fingers/aiming to offend, you cannot play a char who is ingame ~1h/week and expect him to maintain his rank/status.
That's something you only get to keep when you contribute and I think that is legitimate.
So.. yes, if char X meets char Y (char X having been ingame for 1 hour that month and char Y 10 each week) and tries to behave like he has contributed/experienced something that happened in that time, X can't be taken serious.
The idea that those chars have been doing things ingame in the off-time is simply hard to ... accept/grasp.

As for the "catch up", I suppose there could be a better/official summary of recent events in a sort of chronicles. Banduk is trying to provide that in form of his newspaper but I'd welcome something more staff-approved which players with little time can browse through quickly and refer to in their roleplay to be up to date.

Personally I do not expect you/r char to participate in anything and I will never look down at those who cannot provide events or contribute as long as they do not try to act the way I presented above.

I am facing a RL-situation which will have me cut down on my currently high illa-activity and I will come up with an ingame-reason like diseases/travel/etc. for my char's absence which is still the best way to go about it imo.
You can try and do a "X can be seen working a lot in his office" in the downtime-thread but if that char has been working in his office for 2 straight years, it'll just sound hollow.

So.. I am looking forward to see you ingame but also wish you all the best in life, no pressure. : )
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Achae Eanstray
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Re: IRL and lack of presence in game world

Post by Achae Eanstray »

I'd like to comment just related to the roleplay.. hopefully this will be helpful. Yes, all players are welcomed back after a short/long absence. I simply roleplay one of my absent characters as being on an extended vacation to another part of the mainland.. or kidnapped by an orc, or fell into a hole with a long adventure getting out.. etc etc.

I don't think you can roleplay as if your character didn't even leave very well considering the game goes on without you. Overnight, your character is sleeping and it is a minor thing to catch up to events but beyond that is more difficult. I am really not understanding the difficulty with simply telling another char you were on a long trip and what has been happening? Perhaps I haven't read things correctly either so apologize. :D

Yes, real life happens and is number one for us all..everyone in game understands this so coming back should be no problem.. just realize things DID go on without your character there but that can't be helped can it? I don't think people would expect you to "catch up" to anything however if you don't wish to. S'rrt could have even had amnesia! (You can roleplay what you wish as far as your absence, even write something on the forum! :D ).

Feel free to ask particulars or talk to CM or GM in more details per PM if you prefer?
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Kugar
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Re: IRL and lack of presence in game world

Post by Kugar »

Having your character go vaguely on 'pilgrimage' *always* works :wink: . It really does.

My approach is just to try and have fun every time I log in and if I feel that I'm not enjoying something or feel that logging in is more of a responsibility than an act of fun, I just alter my approach -- in the sense that I drop in game responsibilities and hand them on to someone else (pass the torch) -- or take a few minutes to decide what other path my char can go down.

Going after goals with your characters is a good thing but will almost certainly have to be considered as long term goals so long as when they get in the way of rl. They're still attainable but will take longer. Well, that is if you don't just decide to just speed up the process. Sometimes waiting and waiting to achieve something is a bad idea because you don't know when responsibilities or lack of interest are going to bite you in the ass. I honestly have no idea why players wait so damn long to do something. Well I do know, really, but I don't think 'because it makes more sense to let things slowly develop and adjust' is good enough reason when you have such a small player base imo (do lots of world influencing stuff now, players! Da fug you waiting for?!).

But seriously, try and just have fun ever time you log in, that's the main goal, right? If one of your (or anyone else for that matter) chars is in a high position and has stuff expected of them and you can't deliver, just pass the responsibility on to someone else. there's probably quite a few people who would like to take allocated leader roles. And, by the way (not aimed at you), I'd like to see more passing of the torch going on (it just feels stagnant and oppressive otherwise - but yes I know that's an ig thing and not ooc). I think that some people, players and gms alike, are in power positions for maybe too long and either appear to not want to share the privilege or don't appreciate the position necessarily. I mean, if someone finds that leadership role such a burden, they shouldn't be in that role. You know what I mean? I can almost guarantee that if new players thought they might have a chance of a leader role they'd stay. Maybe some of them do feel that way? Sometimes it doesn't necessarily come across that way, though, and that's coming from someone who doesn't want a leadership role. Not anymore, anyway.

Try not to be so hard on yourself. I altered my gameplay approach to make the goal of just having fun (whilst respecting my character's personality and history's and so on obviously) and it did a lot of good for my experience here. I certainly would have quit otherwise.
Kraex
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Re: IRL and lack of presence in game world

Post by Kraex »

As an older player, going on almost ten years I find myself more and more obsessed with the idea of 'atmosphere'. As a PO you have to ask yourself what you want to contribute to this game. If you have a lot of time it would make sense that one of your players could have a significant governmental role in a given faction. If you don't, I don't think you should be "penalized" for the events that you didn't or couldn't partake in unless you are an AFK government official. I like the idea of feeding the kettle, this could be a particular faction or a group of players. Pour into the kettle your talents and creativity and the RP will take care of the rest.

I can't assume I know what you want to get out of your characters or want them to be, but I enjoy your RP even if you think your off or lost even. If something isn't fun for the group at large it won't last, be assured. I have some lofty goals and visions for the community I am most passionate about, but I can tell you straight up it has taken a lot of time and patience to achieve even the smallest milestones. I can feel for you though PO S'rrt.... I have these wants and desires for certain characters but often get caught up in how to achieve them, for me I just eventually fall back to RPing IG on a whim. I am quite often surprised what I get out of the RP at the end.

Hope we don't lose you to the Real World, but if we do, I know you will be back :P
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Azure Lynch
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Re: IRL and lack of presence in game world

Post by Azure Lynch »

Well with azure when I had lost internet for a few months I fourom rped him in some adventures outside the mainland. But also most understand I missed a couple mas and was ridiculed by a couple of people. But that's to be expected one azure at the time was a moshran follower but acted like he gave it up.so missing mas added fuel to the fire. So yeah if there was say char x having issues with char y about who is contributing and who is not. Then out of the blue char x vanished cause of po rl issues. Even though char y po is understanding. The actual ig char does know that all it knows is they vanished and so they would provide them to looking bad to the people. Cause if not it would be bad rp in my opinion. So when char x returns they should be ready for backlash. Or better example was azure wanted to join the Freeman cadomyr battle after saying he would then rl issues happened and I missed it. Azure was called traitor Cady lover. Just all kinds backlash. But hey its rp I just filed with it it actually allowed me to change azure attitude and veiw of the world that will lead to better rp for him and fun for me.
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Q-wert
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Re: IRL and lack of presence in game world

Post by Q-wert »

As soon as someone takes over the position of a leader or diplomat with their character, I personally expect them to dedicate or delegate sufficient work to see that the responsibilities attached to that position are fulfilled. Whether they do or do not, my characters react accordingly in game. In case someone can't meet the expectations for whatever ooc-reason, there is always the possibility to hand the position to someone else.

Ingame responsibilities can be a drag. But no one forces you to hold on to them.


Way back in the day I played a shady spy-like character who had his nose in almost every organisation of old Gobaith, selling inside information from one group to the next and back. While it was super fun to keep closely engaged with just about all the secret organisations, hideouts and ongoings, I could not keep up with stuff like I used to after half year due to IRL-stuff.
With a heavy heart I dropped him out of his activities, settled him down and just logged in for roleplay. And to my genuine surprise no one was angry, the world still turned and I still enjoyed playing that character.
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S'rrt
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Re: IRL and lack of presence in game world

Post by S'rrt »

I'm very happy and grateful to have gotten such insightful and mindful replies (no sarcasm, honestly). I'd like to address the replies individually due to their enlightenment:
Matron:
What you're saying is fair. Harsh at first glance, but fair. I suppose the severity of the "contribution=legitimacy" formula depends not only on the rank/status in question but also on whether a PO has a tendency to make their character act justified about important events, even when they were not there.

Banduk is doing a brilliant job at Dagbladden, I hate to admit that I often is it in conjunction with IG talk to catch up but if that is one of its purposes, all I can say is well done. Well done indeed. I don't have much of a comment on staff-approved IG news because that'd be quite a lot to ask them on top of everything they already do.

I connect with what you're saying about giving what should be a temporary downtime-reason for 2 years straight as becoming hollow but I'll get back to that further in this reply.
Achae Eanstray:
I understand that you may think it's an easy solution to just RP downtime, which I don't blame you for thinking at all, but it is not for me. I've never been good with giving reasons for downtime and I don't exactly know why; maybe it's because I don't feel that it would fit in my character's.. character. Then again neither does undocumented absence.

I know it may be easy for some who are reading this to think "duh, just post in Downtime! You can't eat the ice cream and still have the bucket be full after!" but I guess the best way to put it is to refer to Matron's reply about how it just becomes stale. Not only that, I would have to come up with some pretty compelling RP that justifies absence 90% of the time AND push for involvement 10% of the time. I really don't know how to rationalize what I think about this but.. I'm starting to come to a conclusion about my RP. It's something I need to think about as it involves a change not only in myself but in my character.
Kugar:
I think your post, grouped with other responses, has changed the way I see this whole thing. I need to alter my approach like you did. By the way, I'm not sure if you were addressing me when talking about waiting 'because it makes more sense to let things slowly develop and adjust', but in case you were: that's not why it would seem like I wait. I'm just uncertain about a variety things. Well, was, because much like how I responded to Achae, I think there is an alteration about to happen.

I would like to point out that even IRL people sometimes stay in positions that they don't necessarily like to be in because they feel that things could go wrong if they passed the torch or just quit altogether. I'm dippin into IG a little bit by saying that that may very well be the reason why I can't put myself into a more comfortable situation with my RP; if I change things as a PO, it wouldn't be true to my character's character (there it is again). Then again I know that my character as PO is more important. I think we all know an example of a character who acts like a complete dick while the PO is bawwing about them/their character being treated wrong, and that's not what I want to be. That's another good reason for change.

I have to find a balance between, as you said, respecting my character's personality and history etc. and my own enjoyment. Thank you Kugar, I think you've knocked a stone off of my gears.
Kraex:
I used to have a lot of time for Illarion, too much in fact. I should have realized somewhere down the line, when my RL started changing, that the way I play should change with it. I don't know if it was stubborness or fear or what that held me back from it but whatever it is, it has to change. I've never heard of this analogy of "kettles" but if you mean "cattle" instead, I totally get you.

I'm glad that you're being passionate when it comes to your goals. Hell, I'm glad that you even have goals. Perhaps I need to change the scope of my own goals or rather how to go about achieving them. I need more RP-on-a-whim (RPOW!). I appreciate your support both IG and IRL.
Azure:
I'm not certain that I agree with you saying that it would be bad RP to NOT have malice between characters due to one of them vanishing from duty, at least not always, but you're free to think so yourself. I can't give much of a response to your examples as I feel that they probably happened the way they did due to your RP alone, not because of others following some kind of strict rules on how to deal with the specific behavior of you or your character. Thanks for the examples anyway.
Q-wert:
I respect that that's the way you RP, however I can't agree with you in some regards. As for passing the responsibility, like Kugar suggested, it's not an easy option to think about because of staying true to your character and what you as a PO want from the game (not only in terms of enjoyment). I greatly appreciate your effort in adding the example of your character and sympathize with what you had to do. Thank you.
I'm sorry if I'm not giving a clear enough picture of what I think, feel free to inquire further but I think that I've had an epiphany based on the discussion so far.
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Kugar
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Re: IRL and lack of presence in game world

Post by Kugar »

I'm not sure if you were addressing me when talking about waiting 'because it makes more sense to let things slowly develop and adjust'
It was more of a generalization, really. I'm probably projecting in a way because I have often done this and I've seen the same patterns or behaviors in other folks gameplay. Anyway I'm glad to read your reply to everybody and find conversations like this one quite interesting. Glad it was all of use :)
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Katharina Brightrim
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Re: IRL and lack of presence in game world

Post by Katharina Brightrim »

S'rrt wrote:The bottom line is, there simply isn't enough time or energy to do what I want, and what little activity I still have with S'rrt K'shire IG, it feels forced and stressful.
Maybe you should take a little break then. I had this feeling as well and stopped playing for around one year (or something like that) and it worked very well for me, returning with new motivation (even if I cannot play very often in the moment, thanks to my exams).
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