What's wrong with this picture?

[trylobyte]

*Picture Removed, just visit the race request forum*

This is getting completely ridiculous, people.  9 out of 10 of the last exotic race requests were private.  Heck, 80% of the (non-joke) exotic race apps since March have been private.  Some sanity needs to be brought into this system.  I recommend that, unless it's absolutely mission critical that the character's race be kept secret from everyone, that all exotic race applications must be public.  Why so much paranoia?  We've had fey'ri who were public and they're kill on sight for elves if they get found out.  What could you possibly be hiding?  Come on out in the sun and let's see some of these race requests.  Or just remove the subforum altogether since it no longer serves a purpose that private messages don't.

[Garage Trashcan]

After this trend started happening, I've been in favor of removing the subforum entirely. There's no reason for it to exist when the best way to contact FW and Vince is just to bug them about it anyway.

[Valimar Dragonbane]

It may have something to do with the fact that people like surprises.  Or it could be due to the fact that there -is- some metagaming that goes on when someone automatically sees someone with a hood up, it's an automatic "OMGDROWZ!" followed by demands (some extremely forceful) to have said person pull down their hood.

[Yaldabaoth]

Why does it matter to you?  The forum is there for people to request non-standard races.  Nothing more.  It is not there to sate anyone's curiosity.  How is your game experience served any better, knowing going-in that X PC is a vampire-werewolf-halfmonkey-daemonfey?  

As to why the forum is there, I imagine it's there for organizational purposes.  There's already enough problems with race requests getting lost in the shuffle without going to a PM based system.  

The reason for the sudden upsurge in private requests likely has to do with people either forgetting, or being unaware of the ability to make private requests.  Once one person did it, people likely realized that it was a possibility and could be used to nip quite a few potential headaches in the bud.  

If someone makes a private request, it is exactly that.  Private.  They are under no obligation to reveal any kind of information to you or anyone else.

[Arya]

Truth be told?  

I do like open-door policies. I really, really do.  And I believe our staff should be more open about decisions being made that would affect the playerbase and things of that nature.  But, I do not think exotic race requests being made public makes the server more open-door.  In my case, yes - I want a surprise.  I am not making a character who is going to be competitively PvP happy, or throw some agenda that is going to lead toward something of that realm or excessive and/or unnecessary drama.  Just want someone who can be a surprise for a few weeks. :-)  

Second what Valimar said, though.

And most people know I am nice enough that if the player has not given me reason to do otherwise, I am likely going to say something or two, anyway.  I think it should be up to players to determine what folks know about their characters as OOC knowledge.

Sincerely,
Arya

[trylobyte]

I must be from an older generation of players that didn't worry so much about other people metagaming, since I don't see the tide of private race requests as saying 'I want to surprise people with a neat character concept' but instead interpret it as 'I don't trust you,' and that annoys me because I like to think we as a community trust each other enough to not have to hide simple things like this  The fact this surge in privacy started about the time of the ECL subrace debate also encourages me to think that way - After all, if nobody knows you're playing an exotic subrace except your friends, nobody can complain about the stat bonuses you may or may not be getting from that race.  Even further is that I also don't see the metagaming problem.  I have two drow characters that pretty much nobody hassles, despite the fact one of them is really obvious, and I rarely see other people get hassled about it either.  I mean, if people can openly apply for a fey'ri (which is kill on sight for elves) or a Zhentarim Skymage (which is kill on sight to pretty much any Good character) then really, what are you so worried about revealing?  There are a ton of drow and fiend-bloods, and few exotic races are really going to surprise anyone anymore with the current population of CD.

I suppose that's why it matters to me.  I don't read the shift from public apps to private ones as 'fun and mysterious,' I read it as a sign of deepening paranoia and mistrust among the playerbase and that really bothers me.

[Atomic Twinkie]

In all honesty, it's fine if it's there but personally, I think things like that SHOULD be hidden away because nobody wants their stuff metagamed and I understand it helps with organization, so a private forum works just as well. That fact of the matter is, it's public and that's fine for people that don't mind but some people do, and clearly the people that have posted private apps have done so for a reason - one of my apps was, in fact, for something that was meant to be a shock-surprise to people.

I think that taking a screen capture of all the people that have made private apps shows some lack of decorum, because even though it's publicly viewable this comes across as a way to try and "Name and Shame" those people. There's no need for that. If someone wants to make a private application, there's nothing wrong with that and it's not against the rules, so in my honest opinion there is nothing wrong with that picture. Everything is working as intended.

[Arya]

Look. I am going to be blunt here. Please do not take it to heart!

I know there are some people who -are- of the camp where they do not trust anyone with their characters.  And truthfully, some of those people may never be put at ease, even with the private application option.  This is just how they are, and will be unless something major changes that.

BUT...big, fat BUT...

Everyone, no matter their reasons, should have the option to turn in a private application.  Just because it should be up to the players what others know about their characters or not know, and how they are willing to have that information known.  I think no matter what, they deserve that for themselves.  Some people, like I said, just want to surprise others. Like myself. :-)

Seeing the negativity and what comes across as an attempt at shaming people for making that choice, regardless of the reasons, does not make me further convinced to make my private application public knowledge.  If anything, it makes me want to do the opposite.  Just saying. <.<

Sincerely,
Arya

Postscript: +2 to what Atomic said.

[Yaldabaoth]

Jun 20, 2014 20:01:48 GMT -5 trylobyte said:

I must be from an older generation of players that didn't worry so much about other people metagaming, since I don't see the tide of private race requests as saying 'I want to surprise people with a neat character concept' but instead interpret it as 'I don't trust you,' and that annoys me because I like to think we as a community trust each other enough to not have to hide simple things like this  The fact this surge in privacy started about the time of the ECL subrace debate also encourages me to think that way - After all, if nobody knows you're playing an exotic subrace except your friends, nobody can complain about the stat bonuses you may or may not be getting from that race.  Even further is that I also don't see the metagaming problem.  I have two drow characters that pretty much nobody hassles, despite the fact one of them is really obvious, and I rarely see other people get hassled about it either.  I mean, if people can openly apply for a fey'ri (which is kill on sight for elves) or a Zhentarim Skymage (which is kill on sight to pretty much any Good character) then really, what are you so worried about revealing?  There are a ton of drow and fiend-bloods, and few exotic races are really going to surprise anyone anymore with the current population of CD.

I suppose that's why it matters to me.  I don't read the shift from public apps to private ones as 'fun and mysterious,' I read it as a sign of deepening paranoia and mistrust among the playerbase and that really bothers me.

Both Amaya and myself started on this server before you did, and neither one of us agrees with you.  There isn't some random upsurge in metagame worries.  It's always been there, and always will be.  There seems to be a greater willingness to discuss these issues as of late, which is very much a good thing.  There have been times in the past where no one wanted to discuss their problems with the server until things reached such a breaking point that they had to armor up and scream at the forums for a while before they went on a murder spree.  If people are discussing these things and being civil about it, that's a /good/ thing.

If you really must know what wierd, exotic races people are playing, have you considered getting to know their characters and roleplaying with them a bit?  Isn't that sort of the point of this while arrangement?  I was pleasantly surprised by someone's race recently, and it led to very fun roleplay.

[Garage Trashcan]

People did private applications before. They did it via PM. The staff does have recordkeeping forums for requests like these. If you fear metagaming, it's probably BETTER if the forum is removed. If someone sees you recently put in an exotic race request, then a leto, then have a new character...well they're still going to suspect you of being that new thing, and then they'll try harder to reveal it or figure out what it is (as I am totally guilty of looking up feat numbers in the leto requests to see what's getting added to people to figure out what they are).

So there's already recordkeeping in the staff forums for these types of requests and you can completely kill the curiosity of people like me. There's literally no downside to removing the public forum.

[Arya]

Fair is fair.  I just do not agree with the public shaming bit, among other things.

For myself, I also thought it was protocol to post that I put in a private application. Otherwise, I would have not posted anything about in the exotic race forum.  That is another issue I had with all of this fuss about it all.  Some people feel like they had to post the placeholders for private applications and that it was protocol. And they were being attacked for it.

~Arya

[Deleted]

Actually, no.  All private requests are required to have a placeholder post in the public forum for recordkeeping, even (especially?) the private applications for DM characters.  This method serves multiple purposes, one of which is accountability.  If a PM is missed or not posted, the player has a record publicly showing when the application was originally sent in.  If for no other reason, the forum should remain for that reason.

Otherwise, I agree with practically everything Amaya, HRL, and AtomicTwinkie posted.

[Fire Wraith]

We try to balance things out.  In an ideal world, yes, everyone would have full OOC knowledge about everything.  It's not an ideal world, and we've had to deal with accusations of metagaming many, many times in the past.  Ultimately when it comes to subraces and player backgrounds (which may be submitted privately, too), we allow it as an option and leave it up to the player's comfort level, because different people will have different levels of comfort with that.

[The Red Mage]

I've got no problem with it. It's always been more about record keeping than an OOC information hub for players.

[trylobyte]

I was having a bit of a bad day when I posted this.  Apologies for it.  Private race apps still irk me (simply because I feel the forum no longer serves a purpose when they're all private) but I'm not gonna raise a fuss about it.