Madhouse Gameplay Panel

Addressing questions that have come up during the planning and prelude stages:

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We utilized three methods to find defender candidates for the panel:

We utilized one method to find raider candidates: Swith asked Koth, a prior candidate. Koth suggested we approach Souls and Jakker. All three responded positively.


2 Vetting process
We screened all perspective panelists. We used the following criteria:

Vetting was necessary because we are not part of the gameplay community. Panelists are coming from their community into ours. Madhouse Productions will not put its reputation at risk; a negative or abrasive panel would cost us credibility.

As one of our Founders, Frtiz, pointed out early on: The purpose of this panel needs to remain an effort to help roleplayers gain an understanding of the metagme without demanding they take sides or join an organization, and they must be free to formulate their opinions without being told entire groups of players "suck" or "are assholes". We have invited them into our house as guests. Our roleplay community, our roleplayer standards and best practices, and our unspoken rules take precedent over the unspoken rules and practices found in the gameplay community. Do not invite a person if you believe them incapable of proper behavior. They will dump the soup tureen and burn holes in the tablecloth, upset other guests, and embarrass you. You will have only yourself to blame for lack of better judgement.

Likewise, and as a gameplayer myself, I do not want roleplayers viewing gameplayers as petty, bitter individuals incapable of sitting on their hands. I am presenting my gameplay community's metagame to my roleplay community's denizens. I prefer to keep that a positive experience lest it reflect poorly on the metagame and its players.


3 Defender Contact
Two initial telegram batches went out 28 and 26 days ago, respectively. The first batch went to six defenders. Only one replied ("no"). The second batch went to seven defenders. Only one replied ("no"). This was followed by multiple individual telegrams. Most did not reply. With the exception of one telegram (Shiz), the responses that did come in were abrasive. Some of the blame rests in miscommunication and a lack of knowledge of the defender community. The rest of the blame rests with defenders that clearly stated they would not work with raiders.

Days (or weeks) after the fact, defenders telegrammed to state they were available. They did not do this until after our news request in technical was posted. Some had valid reasons ("I was busy in real life") though I personally do not buy that excuse in every case.

Some of the confusion can be blamed on the different standards between gameplay and roleplay communities. We have a tendency to drop players from our games if that player uses "I was too busy" as an excuse while actively posting in other games.[/ul]

Cerillium
Public Affairs Officer