Dragon Age: Smoke & Shadows

[OrcRiot]

It's almost unanimous here that FC's are either bad in general or at least in this particular case bad. I doubt it'll change anything cause when you think your right...(which I am definitely guilty of.

Still, I may peek at it to see what's what, but I doubt I'll stick around.

[Kireek]

FCs are really making it difficult for me to want to commit more than a half-assed token effort to applying..

I mean.. dude already apping in as Sebastian and it's like.. fuck... how am I gonna deal with this guy? I mean what if I app in as dude number 17 of a group and someone then apps in as the leader- all my RP now is subservient to Orsino or Templar Merdith- and we know how stable those blokes are in game, now lets give them in the hands of players? Good Gods.

[Kanye Qwest]

I admit to a morbid curiosity about how many of the FCs are being played by staffers.

[Thenomain]

@Kanye-Qwest said in Dragon Age: Smoke & Shadows:

I admit to a morbid curiosity about how many of the FCs are being played by staffers.

Morbid, hell, I think it should be required information. Knowing the perks of staffing is one of the checks against staff taking more advantages than players, or getting in the way of players having fun.

The downside of that is there are going to be players who use that information against the staffer, as if a staffer doesn't have the same right as they do to have fun on the game. Because this is a matter of opinion, there are going to be hurt feelings over it, thereby encouraging staff to try and keep that information secret, which would then make it even worse when it gets discovered.

It only takes one self-centered prat to ruin it for everyone.

[Ganymede]

@Thenomain said in Dragon Age: Smoke & Shadows:

It only takes one self-centered prat to ruin it for everyone.

Or a group of them applying for and taking all of the FCs after supporting a policy permitting them.

[Nausicaa]

It's not the FCs in general I mind, or even that staff may have some of those FCs. If someone created a game that is Based On a Source Material and put it in a certain time period that has those FCs, well, that staffer most likely has an FC they would like to play.

My viewpoint may vary because my first games were of the Elendor/Harry Potter/Buffy era. This may just be a thing that I am just used to or encountered so early I accept it as how it is, but I take staff wanting certain FCs as the cost of doing business. I want to play a game set in the Buffyverse I want to play in - after the fall of Sunnydale? Well, one of the staffers is probably going to be Buffy. Another is most likely going to be Spike. If the FC I love the most/want to play is unavailable or played by someone I find does not have a proper grasp of that character, I don't play there and internally hope that game fails because I am a petty, petty person. Otherwise, I've had some of my favorite characters that wove themselves around limited available FCs and became part of the plot.

From what I've experienced, playing an FC is not always because you want to be better than everyone else or want to have an edge over other characters: it's because you love that character quite a bit and want a chance to play them. Sometimes, the only way to do that is to actually to make the game yourself. That I get. However, the problem is, I know that playing an FC can give you an unfair advantage. People already know your character and can decide how to interact with them because they've read/watched the source material. FCs are a lightning rod and can be a very powerful tool in a game. You can turn them into a force of great RP and plot points. Because of their universal identification, they can be used quite effectively due to the fact that they are out actually connecting with other people and weaving a complete storyline through social connections and small character points. Squandering that is basically character story crime.

Basically, I agree with @Thenomain. Staff FCs should be common knowledge. Even if they are not, I imagine it will become clear pretty quickly. All in all, that's not what I have a problem with. I have no problems with Fenris being a character or Varric, no matter who plays tham. Again, it's the Hawke thing that bothers me. It shows me that staff hasn't actually thought of the repercussions of FCs and how they effect players. Or even what an FC really means for the game and how they effect other people.

[Kanye Qwest]

@steel How about it? Which FCs are played by staff?

[Lithium]

@Nausicaa See I'd like to play in a Buffyverse game that was after Sunnydale that had ZERO FC's and no connection to Buffy at all anymore. Slayer would just be a player type since Willow unlocked them all etc.

That would be interesting to me, to see how the darkness fights back against a world that has hundreds of Slayers.

[Thenomain]

Guys, please keep conversation to the advertisement.

Thanks.

[Nausicaa]

@Lithium Don't get me wrong, I'd love a Buffyverse game without FCs after Sunnydale. The game that got me back into MU*dom after years away was a very small Buffyverse game set in the American South that had absolutely no FCs. It remains one of my favorite settings and contained one of my favorite characters I've ever RPed. Find me an active game set in the Buffyverse in a city I'm interested in? Hold me back.

However, I came to the general conclusion a long time ago that if someone was going to make a Buffy game, they would want to include FCs because that's what they would like to play. I get the appeal. I have a Buffyverse FC that I would play on any game that would allow it just because she is one of my favorite fictional characters. I don't fault anyone for FC love as long as they don't try and play it as 'best because canon character' or hinder my own RP because of it.

[Kireek]

Seriously though. Anders.. There is going to be an Anders in this game guys.

There is going to someone who is playing Anders and the question we all are thinking is.. Who is going to get to kill Anders first? Can we kill Anders first? Please let us Kill Anders.

[Steel]

So, for the most part, I'm taking a step back from this thread, because I feel the game will speak for itself or it will not. I know people are wary, and have concerns. All we can do is show those concerns to be things that do not occur on the game, over time. Only time will show the game's value and integrity, not my words here on this thread.

That said, I will answer how many FCs are played by Staff. With a caveat: One of those was auditioned for, applied, and approved before that member of Staff was on Staff. And all but, I think, a day after joining the game and meeting the Staffers for the first time. Three of the FCs are currently played by Staff. I am not keen to out whose alts are whose, because I don't feel like that's my place, but I will say that I, myself, play Fenris.

You may all proceed to tear me to pieces as you like.

However, every other FC that has been applied for, is not a member of Staff, nor necessarily someone Staff knew before they showed interest.

All of that said, certain FCs are being maintained as NPCs, because of the massive impact of the leadership role that they possess. Like Viscount Dumar, Knight Commander Meredith, and First Enchanter Orsino.

[Coin]

@Nausicaa said in Dragon Age: Smoke & Shadows:

@Lithium Don't get me wrong, I'd love a Buffyverse game without FCs after Sunnydale. The game that got me back into MU*dom after years away was a very small Buffyverse game set in the American South that had absolutely no FCs. It remains one of my favorite settings and contained one of my favorite characters I've ever RPed. Find me an active game set in the Buffyverse in a city I'm interested in? Hold me back.

However, I came to the general conclusion a long time ago that if someone was going to make a Buffy game, they would want to include FCs because that's what they would like to play. I get the appeal. I have a Buffyverse FC that I would play on any game that would allow it just because she is one of my favorite fictional characters. I don't fault anyone for FC love as long as they don't try and play it as 'best because canon character' or hinder my own RP because of it.

There's been several Buffyverse games sans FCs. Mystik Krewe and Devilshire, to name just two.

[Arkandel]

@Thenomain said in Dragon Age: Smoke & Shadows:

Morbid, hell, I think it should be required information. Knowing the perks of staffing is one of the checks against staff taking more advantages than players, or getting in the way of players having fun.

Yes, but in my experience - which admittedly might be anecdotal - the problem is less staff alts (staff tend to be pretty busy and can't play their own games very consistently) and more staff friends, which is a different issue altogether. Because then what is a 'staff friend' defined by? A good reliable player? Their buddy? RL bf/gf? To some extent any player trusted to play an important feature character has to be at least known by staff.

And that's without even factoring the subjectivity and petty jealousy some players are naturally inclined to demonstrate in MU*. Did Theno get given Hawke which I wanted? That fucker is obviously TSing/sucking up to staff.

[Kanye Qwest]

@Steel said in Dragon Age: Smoke & Shadows:

So, for the most part, I'm taking a step back from this thread, because I feel the game will speak for itself or it will not. I know people are wary, and have concerns. All we can do is show those concerns to be things that do not occur on the game, over time. Only time will show the game's value and integrity, not my words here on this thread.

That said, I will answer how many FCs are played by Staff. With a caveat: One of those was auditioned for, applied, and approved before that member of Staff was on Staff. And all but, I think, a day after joining the game and meeting the Staffers for the first time. Three of the FCs are currently played by Staff. I am not keen to out whose alts are whose, because I don't feel like that's my place, but I will say that I, myself, play Fenris.

You may all proceed to tear me to pieces as you like.

Not sure why you are expecting to get torn to pieces over that, but not mentioning it at first and then this statement make it look a bit like you suspect it wasn't the sort of thing that would go over well.

It's possible staff will spend the bulk of their time storytelling and having fun from a more meta perspective (as I personally feel staff should), but I admit I have a hard time trusting that a game set during DA2 where staff is playing most of Hawke's merry band of misfits will actually go that way.

There's nothing objectively wrong with wanting to start up a game where you and your friends can rp as Hawke and Co during DA2, but I'm not interested enough in providing background noise to check it out, personally. I'm sure someone will, and will report back to us.

[Thenomain]

@Arkandel

Yeah, but in my experience, if staff is honest then they tend to have honest friends. If their friends aren't honest, then honest staff is intelligent enough to know this and will not feign surprise nor create drama when their friend digs themselves a hole and doesn't have their honest staffer bail them out.

Honest staff are concerned about the game. Dishonest staff are an unknown.

---

@Steel,

What do you have planned for Fenris in the one year he doesn't know Hawke, and is largely hiding out looking for signs of his slave master?

[Arkandel]

@Thenomain said in Dragon Age: Smoke & Shadows:

Yeah, but in my experience, if staff is honest then they tend to have honest friends. If their friends aren't honest, then honest staff is intelligent enough to know this and will not feign surprise nor create drama when their friend digs themselves a hole and doesn't have their honest staffer bail them out.

At that point though we're no longer talking about whether staff is handing out all the cool toys to their friends and more about whether those friends are worthy of said toys.

The way I perceived the problem some folks had in this thread - and I could be wrong - is that the method of distribution itself was flawed and as such, feature characters should not be allowed (with the possible exception of superhero games since there's so many of the buggers around). I mean, no one has argued Hawke would be given to bad people, just that those people would be affiliated with, if not played by, staff.

What I am arguing for is that although there are probably benefits to having FCs around, the drawbacks outweigh them. It's not worth it.

[Thenomain]

@Arkandel

It's always been about who's worthy of the toys. Every discussion about favoritism, whether staff favoring themselves or other people, is about who gets what.

[Arkandel]

@Thenomain Do you consider the discussion of whether those toys should exist at all a separate one?

For instance another version of the same question has been asked in this form: "Who should get IC ranks?" And one of the answers has been "Only NPCs should".

I'm not saying it's an one-size-fits-all approach, for instance in a L&L game it'd probably be a very bad move, but it still belongs in the conversation.

[Kanye Qwest]

Oh. They are Fenders shippers. Glanced at some of the RP logs on the wiki.