Announcements in IC in OOC policy.

[Incomptinence]

This complaint thread covered the most out of place aspect of IC in OOC policy, global announcements.
These announcements can be viewed before joining or even observing. They aren't hidden in the slightest.
Since you can see them before you have any IC presence I simply have to ask.
Can you be banned for IC in OOC before having any in character presence or knowledge on the round? If so how does this make sense?

[peoplearestrange]

Ok lets use another example. Being de-brained for borging. You temporaily "die", or rather you can momentairly see ghost chat and see everything around you, before you are insterted into an MMI. However (apart from one case I know of) we all accept that knowledge gained in that brief time is not to be carried over an used in game.

In otherwords we understand the meta of the game, we accept there might be a possibily that we can, as a player, learn knowledge outside of IC and use that to advantage (which is also why we take metacomms and ghosting so seriously).

Maybe it be something that could be coded to prevent, but still most people accept and deal with the fact that annoucments of any kind are IC, therefore ignore it in an OOC context.


What I mean is we accept as a player we can see the 4th wall and we try not to break it by "passing" info between it. If annoucments are OOC then we have to accept our character in game cannot hear it, which seems pointless. Or we accept that it is IC and ONLY our character can hear it and respond it it. Therefore talking about it in OOC would be IC in OOC.


Once again its all about how you act on info you know as a player. Another example would be being pulled into the round as a ghost. Its generally accepted you don't take info you've learned whilst observing into the round with you.

[CPTANT]

You just have to slam every thought about OOC being there to discuss the round out of your mind.

If its globally announced why do you feel the urge to say it in OOC anyway?

[lollerderby]

This complaint thread covered the most out of place aspect of IC in OOC policy, global announcements.
These announcements can be viewed before joining or even observing. They aren't hidden in the slightest.

Things like central command updates can't be seen from the lobby though. The only strange global announcements to my knowledge are things like malf AI takeover or the nuclear cinematic, where the round is pretty much over anyway and you should be able to wait the couple of minutes for it to actually end.

Since you can see them before you have any IC presence I simply have to ask.
Can you be banned for IC in OOC before having any in character presence or knowledge on the round? If so how does this make sense?

It is pretty dumb that there are IC things broadcast globally.

[Incomptinence]

Ok lets use another example. Being de-brained for borging. You temporaily "die", or rather you can momentairly see ghost chat and see everything around you, before you are insterted into an MMI. However (apart from one case I know of) we all accept that knowledge gained in that brief time is not to be carried over an used in game.

Ghosts can see the IC environment they actually have information not available to everyone to exploit.

In otherwords we understand the meta of the game, we accept there might be a possibily that we can, as a player, learn knowledge outside of IC and use that to advantage (which is also why we take metacomms and ghosting so seriously).

Maybe it be something that could be coded to prevent, but still most people accept and deal with the fact that annoucments of any kind are IC, therefore ignore it in an OOC context.

Global announcements being talked about in OOC isn't really abusable since it is available to all in the game. Banning people over it would have been equivalent of banning someone over mentioning the randomly generated station name at the top of the game window.

What I mean is we accept as a player we can see the 4th wall and we try not to break it by "passing" info between it. If annoucments are OOC then we have to accept our character in game cannot hear it, which seems pointless. Or we accept that it is IC and ONLY our character can hear it and respond it it. Therefore talking about it in OOC would be IC in OOC.


Once again its all about how you act on info you know as a player. Another example would be being pulled into the round as a ghost. Its generally accepted you don't take info you've learned whilst observing into the round with you.

In the similar way to how it is fine to talk about the events of the round after it is over the same should apply information that can predates your roleplay and IC presence. A lot of the purpose of IC in OOC rules is to avoid ruining the experience of others by conferring in round information not readily available to participants. It is to keep things fair and for the purpose of fairness unavoidable announcements are an irrelevance. The only way it affects immersion is in being seen which is the same with any OOC chatter. An observer can see the details of the round the announcement due to poor design is seen in both the parallel you have drawn twice between the state of the character that sees the most and one that sees only the superiminal red shrieking is jarring. This seems to be a ruling that just perpetuates on poor precedent and false equivalence to actually in game roles with near admin levels of IC information.

If its globally announced why do you feel the urge to say it in OOC anyway?

I personally do not but penalizing people doing so is nonsensical anyway.

Ideally no announcements would broadcast to all hamfistedly.

Things like central command updates can't be seen from the lobby though. The only strange global announcements to my knowledge are things like malf AI takeover or the nuclear cinematic, where the round is pretty much over anyway and you should be able to wait the couple of minutes for it to actually end.

Well that is an improvement since it was not always so close to consistency. Still the potential for this edge case exists.

[peoplearestrange]

Global announcements being talked about in OOC isn't really abusable since it is available to all in the game. Banning people over it would have been equivalent of banning someone over mentioning the randomly generated station name at the top of the game window.

That is very true. In the above case they did pretty much repeat a central command announcement therefore it was kinda redundant and probably no point a ban. A warning at most that usual that thing isn't allowed.

One question though, do announcements reach ALL players no matter the situation? I don't actually know the answer to this. For example do you still "hear" the announcement if you are collapsed/in crit? What about with Ear defenders on? If you do then repeating it in OOC shouldn't matter, if it doesn't then its still definitely an IC only issue.

The issue with all of this, is we've tried to simplify everything, rules etc. So its always been a zero tolerance of IC in OOC. HOWEVER as admins, we're also given discretion to take in the situation and "bend" the rules temporarily or to ignore their simple binary.
What I mean is its easier to say "NO IC IN OOC PERIOD" and then deal with the small amount of cases that crop up from time to time. Obviously with this we need to train or make admins aware that they should deal with things on a case by case, that the rules are a binary set.

[Ikarrus]

Technically Centcom announcements are not global.

IIRC Unconscious people, people in the lobby, and deaf people cannot hear them.

Can you be banned for IC in OOC before having any in character presence or knowledge on the round? If so how does this make sense?

ebin fake ic in ooc jokes are awful

[Incomptinence]

Fake Ic in OOC jokes are spam really.

Edit: I just idled in the lobby for a round as a test and revenants can be heard in the lobby for one. Glad that the announcements got cleaned up but IC is still leaking and will probably continue to do so since people don't bother to check it because it is lazy zero tolerance ban territory. Centcom announcements were going to the lobby for years.

Edit2: Then I tested unconsciousness using N2O internals as a doctor and I could still hear station and centcom announcements.

[lumipharon]

You still magically hear them on other z-levels, as far as I know.

[Shadowlight213]

Revenants heard in lobby is a bug. I know what's causing it but haven't gottwn around to fixing it.