OOC factions and playergrous

[Tarjan]

Greetings everybody,

one complaint we have repeatedly received in the past is about OOC
(out of character) and/or IC (in character) factions in the game and
how these tend to have an influence on the game itself and on the
gameplay of players in particular.

The definition of factions here is: Players who know each other OOC
also play their characters (or multiple characters) with the aim to
execute control over certain parts of Xyllomer together with their OOC
friends, for example over guilds, specific groups not necessarily
organized as a guild or other players or individual players.

Some examples for this:

- Playing multiple characters and just by coincidence, all your
characters are also IC friends with all or most of the characters of
your OOC friends
- When choosing characters to play you choose which combination of
characters would suit best to achieve your goals
- You acquire items with one of your characters to "hand them over" to
one of your OOC friends, because you know he is searching for them;
may be done in combination with using one of your characters which
have an easier time in acquiring these items (A fighter to remove some
monsters, a thief to get stuff out of a chest of a dungeon or hotel
room or disguise your OOC friends - even if there is no IC explanation
for this, a mage to .. you get know what is meant)
- Because you either dislike a character IC (Which is perfectly okay)
you and your faction also dislike the player of that character for
whatever reason OOC-ly and thus also dislike his/her other characters
on an OOC basis. This leads to your OOC group making the life of that
player and his/her characters unpleasant - intentional or not
- You try to hold several important positions in guilds or groups,
where possible, to retain the influence and power you deem necessary
to play the game in line with your goals and expectations.

While it is pretty normal for an individual character to be part of
factions, specific groups and guilds, OOC factions are NOT part of the
Xyllomer game- and role-play. Of course we understand that players
would like to play with their OOC friends online and also may want to
play Xyllomer together. This is perfectly fine, if it does not go in
the direction described above.

From now on we will have a closer look at signs for player groups or
factions and may choose to put specific rules on players that need
support in differentiating between OOC and IC factions, as they seem
to have issues with handling this with common sense. One obvious rule
for these players will be the limitation to be allowed to play only
one character at a time and have all your other chars banished.

Even though it is currently not limited by rules, we strongly encourage
everybody to only play one of your chracters actively at a time and have
all your other characters rest during that time.

If you feel that there are still factions influencing the game in the
way described above, please raise them with the administration. Please
do so before the game actually gets unplayable or unbearable for you.

Regards,
Tarjan for the Administration of Xyllomer