Haflinger's Blog

So I don't know. We do need a better definition of the IC/OOC line. Personally, I think it should at least extend to stopping CN wars fought on the basis of "He insulted my ex-girlfriend, so now I'm going to impress her by blowing up his alliance!"

But she will be impressed, right?

Excellent entry, I could not agree more. Since I do almost almost anything in the form of work of my character on IRC (wooooh, lots of prep. phrases there), it is hard for me to place IRC as OOC. Granted, I do talk OOC often on IRC but this is usually to friends and we realize it is no longer CN.

IC/OOC is really not hard to pull off. People make it 'hard' on purpose, because they feel it gives them an advantage.

I don't know how often people say "I'm RPing a character like myself." Dumbest. Statement. Ever. You run a nation in real life? I'm willing to bet if you do, you have better things to do than play a leader of a make believe one.

Basically, if you're speaking as a leader of a nation or as part of an alliance, then you are IC. Just because many choose not to recognize the line doesn't mean there isn't one, or that it is hard to recognize.

Good post, I enjoyed it.

IC/OOC line when everything boils down is a figment. On IRC, regardless what people consider it (IC or OOC), peoplw will generally go about how they do thiings the same way anyways. On the RP parts of the forums, you see the only real distinction between the two.

Rerolls evenhave a tendency to be questionable as to if they are truly an IC or an OOC thing, as rerolls generally tend to fall into the same habits of the old nation/identity anyways. More often than not, they associate with the same groups, they play the game in the same way, tend to post on the forums in the same or similar fashion as their old identity, and tend to carry over any dislike of groups from their old identity over to the new.

IC/OOC is still there, but it's been confined to an iron lung for a long, long time, and is generally shut out from the majority of the reality of the situation.

I guess it comes down to what sort of OOC interaction we are talking about. If someone is threatening to kick my butt in real life I'd probably have less to say about the IC/OOC line and more to say about telling the police.

Part of the problem as I see it is people have gotten to casual and everyone is all hunky dory friendly like. Makes it hard to keep a real IC/OOC seperation.

Personally I consider anything said in a public IRC channel, particularly by myself, as OOC. Said by the person behind the character, not the character in the game. When you get to queries or private (gov channels mainly) then it's different. I talk OOC and IC in those, but really I think it's easy to tell the difference, the only time the lines get blurred is when people deliberately blur them for their own benefit, usually an IC benefit.

In my alliance's public channel last night I was discussing an elaborate plan to overthrow Moo and take his place at the helm of NPO. It involved smothering a cow in vaseline so that when he attempts to hug it he slips and falls, then we tie him up and we're done. Now that's clearly entirely OOC, even if it is talking about an IC person/alliance, and everyone can see that because of how utterly ludicrous the entire idea is.

When people are having serious OOC discussions about IC issues, that's when the blurring of the lines can and will occur, which is annoying. Having to put OOC tags on posts etc in predominently OOC areas is unnecessary. OWF for example is supposedly an OOC forum, yet if you read through the first page of threads you can see a lot of veiled, and not so veiled, threats because of posts that have been made. OWF just seems to be an extension of AP to me right now.

Not sure if I've actually made a point in this whole post, just sort of started typing with nothing particular in mind :lol:

Wait, is something OOC simply because it's ludicrous?

I don't know about other people, but I roleplay as someone with a sense of humour. Sometimes I make jokes which are thoroughly IC, and well, they're not any less IC because they're intended to be funny. And in particular, connecting Moo with cows strikes me as an IC reference, given that in the Real World talking cows do not run political organizations. (Unless they do. Hmmm. That could explain some governments )

I haven't figured out how to apply the OOC/IC line to the contents of the main OWF yet. It seems to me that the majority of posts in OWF these days are IC-oriented; a lot of them are war propaganda posts, usually either for- or anti- Vox Populi, and in fact most of them (including the one imhotep posted recently in AP that got moved to OWF) belong in AP, as they are IC alliance drama.

In for massive gravedig. You maintain we need a better definition of OOC/IC; I maintain OOC/IC doesn't exist. I sense the makings of an epic debate here.