OOC Discords And The Influence They Hold

[Peacewhisper]

Its been over three months since I exchanged discord messages with anyone else who plays Arelith. I am not in any Arelith related discord groups and have not been for literally years. While it's great I am not alone in this, the problem is too big to ignore when it becomes standard practice for settlements to require out of game communications to even be allowed to participate in their role play. Be the change you want to see is great advice, I am doing that, I have been doing it for literally years, but it has not stopped discord from eroding away the authenticity and immersion of the role play experience here. Some kind of change is going to have to come from the top down, not saying we should start with a ban wave, but there should be an announcement or something. "Hey, its not cool to require this out of game app to participate. Please stop it. This is your chance to do better because we will start looking into this." would be nice to see.

[D4wN]

You don't need to be in any Discords if you don't want to. As far as I know none of the Settlement Discord's leaders force anyone to be in or participate in Discord and the majority of stuff I see is either new players asking questions, organisation of events or banter. The settlement Discords imo aren't the issue. It's the toxic echo chamber private Discords. Every Discord owner has the responsibility and accountability to manage their discord server if they choose to make one. So they should enforce the rules applied by Arelith. 'Be Nice', don't use OOC methods to get one up over your enemies. No metagaming (this includes voice use for PVP).

I just feel like the DMs/Admis making an announcement to the community to please just be nice and not use OOC methods to 'win' won't do much. They already have a zero tolerance on bullying and that's not followed either. It's unfortunately as they say pushing the snuggybear uphill. That's why I simply leave toxic Discords if I find myself in one. It's also definitely easy to get drawn in mind you. That's why it's safer just to not be in them and remove yourself from that toxicity.

[Xerah]

Calling this a "too big to ignore" issue is widely disproportionate to the actual issue. I've never felt I need to join out of game app to participate. Sometimes I join settlement discords. Sometimes I don't. Sometimes I ignore invites to join faction's discords. Never had an issue.

Can it happen? Sure. Is it a "too big to ignore" issue? No.

[find me in the future]

The one private faction discord I joined ended up with me reporting multiple rulebreaking behaviors within a month and the faction dying after it, suitably, got handled by the DMs.

To pull a recent experience: though I wasn't involved in the Sibayad-Myon conflict, it was really discouraging to see Other Players talking negatively and badly about Myon players as a whole after that fiasco. It was also discouraging to read comments leaked out of that same discord about planned griefing, or accusing other players of being "bad roleplayers" because they put someone in the fugue. To note, it was reported and the problem players were handled. It wasn't the majority; it was just a vocal minority.

And that's the thing. It does tend to reach the DMs eventually, but negative behavior is not made aware to the team if people don't speak up. Report misbehaving when you see it, even if it's your friend.

OOC communications are never necessary to fit in.

[Peacewhisper]

You don't need to be in any Discords if you don't want to. As far as I know none of the Settlement Discord's leaders force anyone to be in or participate in Discord and the majority of stuff I see is either new players asking questions, organisation of events or banter. The settlement Discords imo aren't the issue. It's the toxic echo chamber private Discords. Every Discord owner has the responsibility and accountability to manage their discord server if they choose to make one. So they should enforce the rules applied by Arelith. 'Be Nice', don't use OOC methods to get one up over your enemies. No metagaming (this includes voice use for PVP).

I just feel like the DMs/Admis making an announcement to the community to please just be nice and not use OOC methods to 'win' won't do much. They already have a zero tolerance on bullying and that's not followed either. It's unfortunately as they say pushing the snuggybear uphill. That's why I simply leave toxic Discords if I find myself in one. It's also definitely easy to get drawn in mind you. That's why it's safer just to not be in them and remove yourself from that toxicity.

We've literally had the ship captain of a settlement say in this thread that yes, you do need to be in discord, because that's exclusively how they organize sails, and you'll be excluded if you aren't in that discord because you "might be a pirate." Not a single ship captain from another settlement came in to offer a rebuttal that "No we don't do that here anyone can sail with us." because they are all exclusively organizing via discord too. That's not okay. I have already removed myself from the toxicity of discord many years ago, I still suffer from it because it continues to spill into the game, and I usually find myself feeling excluded because of it.

Of course I don't believe a simple warning will completely stop all the discord shenanigans either, I am not that naive, but I do think it's fair to at least give them a warning and a chance to start doing better before issuing bans. If they choose to continue with the metagaming and exclusive discord clique behavior then sure, the DM's can give them a free vacation and maybe it will do them some good to play on other servers for a while. It certainly did me. As others have pointed out, a lot of this problematic behavior stems from the "must-win" competitive mentality and paranoia so many Arelith players have. People take this game way too seriously and forget we are here to tell stories and to have fun.

[find me in the future]

Not a single ship captain from another settlement came in to offer a rebuttal that "No we don't do that here anyone can sail with us." because they are all exclusively organizing via discord too.

I have a comment for this too, despite not being a sail fanatic: I'm happy to see that no actually-playing, current sailing crews from any settlement or known sailing group I'm aware of have weighed in here because they are too busy hosting their sails in-game, providing their sail times in-game, leaving out "we're sailing!" signs in-game, and grabbing literally anyone interested who is around at the time or sends a messenger after seeing their sign to come sail with them.

If people are only posting their events/IC information OOCly to avoid it being found out in-game for whatever reason, it is fortunately a reportable offense as well. Usually people don't realize or forget, and it's an easy "hey you forgot to ..." ping. If it's continued, may as well send that information to the team to handle it instead. The people who still use Discord in any way can do their part in helping keep things clean and fair for the people who don't want to.

obligatory repeat: report misbehaving when you see it, even if it's your friend.

[Xerah]

I'm not sure which post you're referring to that said that they only have things posted in discord for sailing times. Maybe I missed it.

If you mean Gwen's player's post, that was talking about finding a time with members of the navy that could best get together for an RL time to do sailing. That has nothing hiding things away in discord. Trying to do that ICly with a large group is ridiculous.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

We've literally had the ship captain of a settlement say in this thread that yes, you do need to be in discord, because that's exclusively how they organize sails, and you'll be excluded if you aren't in that discord because you "might be a pirate." Not a single ship captain from another settlement came in to offer a rebuttal that "No we don't do that here anyone can sail with us." because they are all exclusively organizing via discord too. That's not okay. I have already removed myself from the toxicity of discord many years ago, I still suffer from it because it continues to spill into the game, and I usually find myself feeling excluded because of it.

Comon man, that's not what I said at all. First off, I have never been a ship captain of any settlement, I have just been part of the crew. I do have mad respect for the work they put in to making it go, though. Second, I never said it was required, only that it helps a lot. If you wanted to avoid discord people will bend over backward to make it work for you, I promise. How do I know that? I've avoided discord to not out who I am by saying in game "I don't do discord" several times over the years and the only responses I've gotten were to the tune of "I totally get that" or "Mad respect for that".

I was even sailing with a captain who doesn't particularly care for discord themselves with my last character (before I got the "not an evangelist dip blues" which totally sounds like it belongs as a title in bob dylans discography) based on their own words in this thread, and I had no problem getting summoned over anytime I wanted without any discord conversation.

I think xerah said it best already, but I will double down for them-

You are making a mountain out of a Molehill here. Yes, sometimes people get crazy on discord. No, the settlement discords are not the reason, they are the solution for the folks who want the ease of discord without the potential drama of being trapped in a player run discord. The benefits simply outweigh the pitfall in most people's mind, but if it ain't for you then don't do it and I promise you will be fine.

Edit: Oh, maybe you meant a different post, gwen was indeed a settlement captain. A damn good one too, that took non sailors out all the time and bent over backward to involve anyone and everyone. Not exactly the exclusive type if you get what I am putting down here. Not everyone is a discord villain just because they use discord.

[find me in the future]

I'm not sure which post you're referring to that said that they only have things posted in discord for sailing times.

For the sake of helping, I went and ctrl+f'd through. I could be wrong, but the closest matches to the claims made are from this post as well as this one. I didn't read the same thing in these posts that they've claimed at all, so don't know for sure!

[Xerah]

I don't think Babylon has been a ship's captain before, but they can correct me if I'm wrong. (which I should have read the post above this before responding)

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

I'm not sure which post you're referring to that said that they only have things posted in discord for sailing times.

For the sake of helping, I went and ctrl+f'd through. I could be wrong, but the closest matches to the claims made are from this post as well as this one. I didn't read the same thing in these posts that they've claimed at all, so don't know for sure!

Now you are just confusing me, first I thought they meant me, then you convinced me they may have meant gwen, now I think they meant me again...

[find me in the future]

I'm not sure which post you're referring to that said that they only have things posted in discord for sailing times.

For the sake of helping, I went and ctrl+f'd through. I could be wrong, but the closest matches to the claims made are from this post as well as this one. I didn't read the same thing in these posts that they've claimed at all, so don't know for sure!

Now you are just confusing me, first I thought they meant me, then you convinced me they may have meant gwen, now I think they meant me again...

LOL, yeah, confusion moment for everyone, I think. I never mentioned Gwen's post, but they explicitly comment on pirates, Discord and captaining, so I think they somehow misread that somewhere. I looked for the only mention of pirates in tandem with the other buzzes.

[Peacewhisper]

There was indeed some confusion as hypotheticals were taken literally, so I apologize for any wrong assumptions I made here. My stance is still the same though. Discord as an option? That's fine. Discord as a requirement? Heck no.

[Zer]

I don't think official discord channels are a problem - they are open to everyone, there is some moderation present, they are not essential for playing the game and generally don't lead to "us vs. them" mentality.

Private discord servers however sometimes do lead to this kind of behavior - win at all cost attitude and this is not necesseraly just a pvp thing when people use discord communication, voice or text channels to gain advantage, but a control over how story will develop - gatekeeping; bullying of group\characters they dislike; sharing of all sorts of information or resolving in character conflicts by deciding how they develop in a discord; using discord as a means to identify players who are not part of that community... there's more than a few ways you can use it to gain advantage in-game.
Or there's another type of communities - you can have none of that and your faction discord is just a place to socialize, post memes, play tabletops using it mostly to notify for upcoming events. Its really depends on what culture you are trying to develop.

During my rather short time on Arelith I encountered both types of communities and from my experience second type is more prevalent. I tend to stick with those and limit my interaction with the first type.

[AnselHoenheim]

You don't need to be in any Discords if you don't want to. As far as I know none of the Settlement Discord's leaders force anyone to be in or participate in Discord and the majority of stuff I see is either new players asking questions, organisation of events or banter. The settlement Discords imo aren't the issue. It's the toxic echo chamber private Discords. Every Discord owner has the responsibility and accountability to manage their discord server if they choose to make one. So they should enforce the rules applied by Arelith. 'Be Nice', don't use OOC methods to get one up over your enemies. No metagaming (this includes voice use for PVP).

I just feel like the DMs/Admis making an announcement to the community to please just be nice and not use OOC methods to 'win' won't do much. They already have a zero tolerance on bullying and that's not followed either. It's unfortunately as they say pushing the snuggybear uphill. That's why I simply leave toxic Discords if I find myself in one. It's also definitely easy to get drawn in mind you. That's why it's safer just to not be in them and remove yourself from that toxicity.

You just summarized the reason I did left the official discords completely, ironically.

[Subtext]

We've literally had the ship captain of a settlement say in this thread that yes, you do need to be in discord, because that's exclusively how they organize sails, and you'll be excluded if you aren't in that discord because you "might be a pirate." Not a single ship captain from another settlement came in to offer a rebuttal that "No we don't do that here anyone can sail with us." because they are all exclusively organizing via discord too. That's not okay. I have already removed myself from the toxicity of discord many years ago, I still suffer from it because it continues to spill into the game, and I usually find myself feeling excluded because of it.

I am not sure you recognize the irony of it but that is a very hostile and kind of toxic statement to make. I also seem to have missed the part about being excluded if you aren't in the discord because "you might be a pirate".

First of all, no, I am aware of at least one crew who managed to do it without ooc organization (and they were highly inclusive) but I've also seen the amount of time and effort that went into it. And while I genuinely appreciate that captain for what they've pulled off, this isn't something I would expect from any player as a baseline.
Besides, I believe they don't use the forum either so they couldn't offer a rebuttal even if they wanted to. Talk about OOC communications.

Now, as far as organizing a crew goes, I don't put that expectation to myself. I will gladly invite anyone to a voyage that is interested - but as far as organizing one goes, I'm hesitant to get the ball rolling on that if I don't know that I have at least a baseline crew at hand. That doesn't necessarily require using Discord. But it does require to align a couple of people to the same time oocly - and only then I can freely give that time around to everyone else randomly interested. And yes, I view ooc time alignment as a hard requirement because using IC terms to convey a time to three people will end up in one being a day early, one being a day late and the third one asking me when we are going to meet after I already canceled the voyage.

Yes, I could absolutely completely do that ingame. I could spend my time hunting down everyone and do the same song and dance about planar, gnomish and Arelithian timing to make sure everyone knows when we leave.
Or I could throw up an event in Discord which covers the exact time and date as well as any timezone shenanigans for me.
Not being part of it has never been a reason to exclude anyone, mind you. I've often enough invited people and given them the time - followed by a speedy when we were about to gather (and that often went wrong because they got the time wrong!)

It simply means being able to include you if I am not able to catch you ingame...and to avoid any misunderstandings about the when.

---

As far as the overall sentiment goes, I feel like some measure of ooc communication is part of it all. I quite like chatting with people I enjoy playing with on an ooc level. Nowadays it's Discord. Back in the day it was IRC. It doesn't really matter which medium you use - if you aren't a toxic shitbag, it shouldn't lead to issues in the first place.

And for full disclosure - I sometimes vent to my friends about players or events I find very frustrating. Recently I had reason for a lot of venting. I also keep that to 1:1 chats and to a small circle of people and specifically not use any faction Discords or the likes for that simply because it tends to sour the entire atmosphere.

My advice is...
It's one thing to vent at times. Everyone has a bad day, everyone does something bad a times, everyone ends up being frustrating to someone. And just like that, it's one thing to vent privately to a person you trust and another to start a witch hunt in your faction Discord. Don't do the latter!
Try not to let it get to you too much...or even worse, develop a grudge. And if you do, distance yourself - from the character, from the faction, from the general area. Take a deep breath and try to figure out whether you can either peacefully coexist or if you should move on someplace else.
But it should NEVER come to a situation where people are engaging in some ooc fueled trench warfare only to push others out of their playspace.

And that applies universally, regardless of the ooc medium used.

[Ork]

Never had an issue.

I'm going to push on this a bit because of how these discords work, you never had an issue that you're aware of.

Some players have to control the narrative. Obsessively. I can guarantee that refusing a discord invitation has directly led to players getting soft blocked. Roleplay continues, but your prospects in a settlement or faction are diminished. It's insidious because players are trying not to clue you in that they've done it, but they're behind the scenes refusing to entrust narrative power of the faction or settlement to you.

It happens. I've seen it on both sides of the equation and it's sad. One of the greatest things we can do as collaborative storytellers is picking up someone else's story, and this discord soft block is the direct antithesis of collaborative.

It's a problem, and the worst thing about it is that it's hard to prove.

[Rei_Jin]

The issue with social media engagement for communities is that we can't put the genie back in the bottle.

As much as there is good that is done through them, there is also bad, and the staff cannot stop people using social media, such as Discord.

Banning the use of Discord would just push it underground.

It is much healthier to try to have it openly accepted and mediated as much as is possible, otherwise you end up with an online situation like the US during the prohibition era. Banning what the people wanted didn't work then, and it won't work now.

[godhand-]

Some players have to control the narrative. Obsessively. I can guarantee that refusing a discord invitation has directly led to players getting soft blocked. Roleplay continues, but your prospects in a settlement or faction are diminished. It's insidious because players are trying not to clue you in that they've done it, but they're behind the scenes refusing to entrust narrative power of the faction or settlement to you.

It's a problem, and the worst thing about it is that it's hard to prove.

I have no proof, but i can verify that i have first hand experienced the obsession.

a few years back i had a character rise to a very senior position in a major settlement/faction through entirely ingame efforts.
Soon i was receiving calls on discord every week to discuss (be told) the plans and goals/intentions for the next week. including who was plotting against us and what to do to stifle them etc.

very quickly this became unfun for me, the game became a job and even though the character was prominent and successful, i rapidly lost interest in playing.

a month or so later i rolled the toon because of the OOC associated with it.
I quickly received a phone call full of abuse insults and all of the worst humans can give., because i "betrayed them" by rolling without telling them my intentions and didnt continue to support them.

since then i've pretty much avoided all big faction/settlement RP because there are very few players i trust OOC to not inundate me with this obsessive drama and attitudes.

[Anomandaris]

The level of “OOC gaming” that happens is undeniably pervasive and detrimental to server health.

Discord is a great tool, but often does become a melting pot for nurturing meta grudges, spreading dubious rumors, or straight up OOC influence peddling, spying, manipulation, and metagaming, it’s rampant. It’s just the byproduct of our naturally tribalistic natures as humans. It’s far more rampant when trying to do anything of “import” or garner a certain level of influence e.g. settlement politics.

It’s amazing to watch how quickly the server come alive ic and ooc in shockingly coordinated ways when you step on the wrong toes. This is just a reality. Test it and you’ll see yourself!

[Elurion]

I politely refuse joining Discords for factions. Many players think you don't want to play with them if you're not jumping into their Discord. Of course, that's not how I feel. I was very happy to join them and play with them in-game. But it was apparent that they were doing a lot of planning and coordinating outside of the game, and felt that in-game coordination was a burden. Discord is not going away, and the 2000s aren't coming back. So it a matter of adapt or don't.

As we have it now, as a player you have to choose between either instantaneous Discord messages to everyone in their pockets, or leaving paper written messages on message boards/catching people online, or leaving a message in the ancient -faction dialogue system.

Improving our current in-game systems for organizing Factions, Faction communication, Faction events, Faction Ranks, etc. could go a long way to get people to move their coordination out of Discord and back into Neverwinter Nights.

Imagine logging into Arelith, and heading to your local Speedy Messenger service to interact with your Speedy sanctioned Guild Box that your Faction pays for each month. You're greeted with a NUI menu with the MOTD from your faction. It includes information on the faction, in-game dates & times for events/meetings that you can RSVP to. Maybe there's a list of messages that faction members have posted in the last 7 days. You could go to a Speedy office and have the option to send a mass speedy message to all faction members who are online, or pay to have a message delivered to their faction mailboxes (and their residence). Maybe your guildmaster has sent you a letter asking you to go on an urgent coal mining quest.

There is a ton of functionality that could be built into the game through NUI. Would love to see it (and even help build it.)

[Ork]

Banning the use of Discord would just push it underground.

This might be what's best. Players are able to incorporate other players into their discord first through in game avenues mainly tells. The innocuous "hey man add me I'm ork#8835" is how these discords mostly start, and how you'd have to organize for organically grown factions.

Make that an actionable offense. Push private discords into the underground. They'll have less ability to actually do anything if they're risking consequences to add the new guy. This will also make them so insular that 1) we'd know it immediately and 2) they can't grow without a lot of effort.

[Richrd]

This is wild, lmao.

Look, what's the next step? Forbid tells? Google Hangouts? Skype (wait, does Skype even exist anymore?)?

A couple of bad actors shouldn't make you all so mad that you want to throw all the convenience of event organization out, like that.

Talk about disposing of the entire harvest over one bad apple.

[Subtext]

All officially banning the use of private Discords will achieve is existing cliques becoming even more insular and exclusive and shift the focus even more on existing groups or folks who are online a lot than it already is.

People wouldn't stop using private Discords. They would just stop readily inviting new people.

[Ork]

I have not been in 1 good private discord save perhaps the arcanum.