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Okay, so I've been seeing these threads around asking for Cayorion or someone to program in some sort of punishment for bad roleplayers. Now, with four new upcoming races, a traits plugin hinted at a while back and new worlds left, right and centre, do you really think the staff should waste time on doing something we have an effect on?
People are suggesting mutes and/or disabling features for 'bad' roleplayers. This is wrong. As Ryciera, Tom1804 and others have said, to stop bad roleplay we must encourage good roleplay. Think of it this way; would you rather be given a treat if you did good, or a punishment if you did bad? How do people train pets, do they give them treats if they do good or continually scold them and treat them terribly? Using the latter reaps worse results than the former. Do you know why? Because people like being rewarded. Don't you love that feeling when you know you've done something right? That's exactly what a reward would do. A feeling of accomplishment beats a feeling of helplessness.
The best reward- and with the least coding, as in, none- is be the reward. If you see a new player, give them some tips on how to improve RPing, or teach them entirely. When they do it well, reward them, be it give them an item or verbal praise. We have the power to end bad roleplaying, but that's only if we turn it into good. So stop complaining! Get out there and use what the staff gave you! If people troll, sure, get report-happy, but if a player wants help you have a duty as a roleplayer to teach them how to roleplay properly.
In summary, don't ask for more things off the staff! We don't need any new resources to prevent bad roleplay, as we have the knowledge and capabilities to do it ourselves! The only way we can improve the quality of an individual's roleplay is if we take matters into our own hands. The staff already do a lot for us- an amazing, almost inhuman amount of work for us- so we definitely don't need them to baby every new player and put even more on their plate. Get out there and we can take care of bad roleplayers. There's enough of us with experience in the community to handle teaching at least one person to RP. And when they learn, they can teach someone to RP, and so the cycle will continue. There will be only a small percentage of the community who don't roleplay properly on purpose- and that small percentage is why we have a report system.
But this is only a minority of 'bad roleplayers'- the rest are good roleplayers who don't know how yet. You can't give someone tools and call them a craftsman, they need to be taught how to use them. Just make sure you try to make an effort yourself. The wellbeing of the server is made up of many staff contributions and efforts, but how we use these as a community makes their efforts worthwhile. Don't make them believe they've wasted their time; they haven't. We can do it! The staff have given so much to us, so let's give back a little and show them the community care and want to help out too!
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