Please help me improve my play.

So I have been thinking (cue the gasps of horror)...
Maybe I really so suck at this and deserve to be called names and riddiculed for it every time I make post on the board.
Since I am not sure where and what exactly I do wrong, I need unbiased input.
I know of some things I have done that I in retrospect would call stupid myself, but there are probably more errors I still don't recognize.

So I am asking for help.
Where did I go wrong?
How can I do better?
What can I do to reach the boards standards of RP?
Since I am working on a new character concept (i.e. EUFor_Veteran), what mistakes should I aviod repeating?

I really don't see anything that bad with you Jaquento. At worse your character seems a little tame to me these days, you may want to think about a character arc, something happening to him. For instance about stuff that happened in his weapon store?

Would you prefer it in PMs or for us to just post here in the thread?

That is seriously like the worst thing you can tell a person looking for constructive criticism man.

Do your worst and I'll try not to cry.
I went into this knowing that my feelings will be hurt, so feel free to have at it.
Maybe others will learn from my mistakes as well.

Even if I accidentally unlocked the single most offensive combination of english words possible in that very context, which in itself has to be a feat of some sort, this is how I feel about Jaq's roleplay.

Jaq, I think that "think of the consequences before you press 'post'" is the best advice I can give you. Some of your post feel like the person posting doesn't think of the consequences a post might involve. For example threatening a person over the extranet feels a bit childish and rash, and not something an adult/marine would do.

4Eyes4TheWin, Mr_​Sandman... stop the both of you, I'm getting sick and tired of this little feud or whatever the two of you have going on, and I know I'm not the only one, so shut the fuck up and handle it in private with or without mods to moderate and help.

Surrounding Jaq with an air of immaturity was kinda what I aimed for, it is a character trait along with a certain naivete and idealism. But well, I do see your point a former navy tech and N7 specops operative should know better than to make immature attacks on the extranet.

The point's not to hurt your feelings man or to tear you down, I mean yeah I'm not going to sugarcoat shit but constructive criticism =/= "go fuck yourself and die". So, without further ado:

Hi, as the person doing a good chunk of the IC insulting (which is, at the end of the day, relegated to IC) here's my actual OOC issues with how Jaquento and a number of your other characters have been played, you'll have to forgive me if they're a bit fuzzy at points. It's kinda been awhile. So, to simplify things, we're going to just bullet it.

1. Extreme views will get you extreme reactions. With your characters, primarily Karsten and Jaquento, there's a definite tendency to shoot right past "reasonable middle ground" and into the strange and twisty landscape of the Fox News territories. This is not to say that you're an idiot if you don't change what your character says but, for example, constantly calling the Hierarchy a socialist/totalitarian state and drawing comparisons to human examples is going to have a lot of people going "what the fuck are you smoking". Similarly, saying things like "I thought about burning my house down rather than let SATAE take it" makes a character seem unironically Ryan/Rapture-esque and exponentially increases the desire to drive a nine iron through their face. Going "You will never take us collectivists!" is just kinda weird to be honest. It's manufacturing conflict on the basis of intentional hyperbole and misrepresentation and so it's kinda flimsy, particularly in light of actual things that are perfectly legitimate criticism.

For example: is Hackett's plan a gross overreach of power? Arguably, a very good case could be made for it. Does it have some pretty frightening political ramifications? Ayup.

Is Hackett literally Stalin?

Yeah no.

If that's what you want to do then by all means, go ahead, but understand that taking the extreme position thoroughly discredits a character to anyone whose not part of that group and makes dialogue that much harder.

2. Work within established character boundaries. And by that I mean that Jaquento doesn't have to be the absolute best at everything. This is more of an old board thing/some impressions I've gotten off previous writing on the new board but at times Jaquento wildly exceeds what he should be capable of (the N-Missions were probably the main example of that) considering that he's...what? An average combat engineer from a wealthy family who was drafted into an irregular unit? He's not some Shepard-tier bigdick badass he's very very human and, as such, needs some consequences and actual flaws. I mean like, right now, what would you say his greatest IC failing is? As a person?

If it's "well he's just too [insert some otherwise positive trait]" you need to rework it.

3. For the love of God, talk to people and know what you're talking about. This thread's a good first step but, uh, stuff like the Alliance Military (and this is more dealing with EUFor_Veteran) that a lot of people besides you have put a lot of work into? It's good manners to at least shoot people like Nat a PM and work out some technical details with them at some point, rather than just going "yo the Alliance is using mecha now, deal with it". Could the idea of the SA incorporating national divisions work? Yeah actually, they're hard up on trained manpower and using local troops to police their home regions helps solve a lot of problems re: logistics, moral, and public perception. Could the idea of mecha work? Yup, nobody on Earth's going to be using orbital artillery on the home planet, that's kinda a fuckhuge no-no; this, in turn means that nations are free to develop bigger and better designs of modern armour for what are ultimately purely planetary based exchanges.

But is the SA going to permanently assume control of all military divisions from Europe and elsewhere? Are they going to implement mecha as a widespread thing? Are they going to completely seize control of Earth?

Context is important: the Alliance strategy is based on blitzkrieg type maneuvers which revolve around high mobility and a strong navy plus, in any engagement, orbital supremacy is basically the ultimate high ground. Absorbing all the planetary divisions would bloat the military hugely and unnecessarily. Heavy armor like the mecha are slow and vulnerable to artillery strikes. And, apropos of nothing, why would SATAE declare themselves Grand Emperor's of Earth forever.

So yeah, work with people on this shit, because people have put in a lot of effort into making this stuff make actual sense and slinging curveballs left and right affects more than just you.

4. Structure determines how likely people are to read your posts. And by this I mean for fucks sake don't just list what Jaquento or whoever's doing. Don't tell us how he feels. Don't just go "He [verbed] in the [noun] angrily because he was angry". Show don't tell: descriptions of environments, of people, of emotional states are so much more engaging than the barebones necessary to continue a thread. This isn't to say devote entire paragraphs to so and so's rugged white manliness, a long, descriptive post, in which absolutely nothing happens or changes is equally as boring as a checklist.

Kindly don't brush aside what I'm saying, it's actually kinda important. If someone's looking to improve telling them "oh no you're basically fine" is doing them an active disservice, it's not "nice" it's harmful. And if you're going to contribute anything you owe it to them to at least make the barest effort to be decently constructive.

...Seriously? Dude you're not our superior, and definitely not a mod. And minimizing any conflict I have with Four that I'm, so far, being perfectly polite about is both unnecessary and unhelpful.

Exactly.

While I am the type of person who rarely who thinks ahead when she posts or write. It is important to keep in mind the consequences of your character's actions. Both on the extranet and off the extranet. Threatening or challenging people to fights is going to make people take you less serious both on the real internet and the fake extranet.


I haven't really followed your character that much I'm afraid. But I think one thing you can improve on is writing more, hmm. More posts with content? This is a trap I've fallen into with Kari and BOSS occasionally. One-Two sentence replies that rarely contribute much to the overall thread.

I'd also encourage (though this is again partly my ignorance of the character) to try and develop Jaq's company. Bring up topics of his interest and post them too. You can develop a character a lot on the extranet with just these things. :)

Hopefully this helps a bit. :) I generally avoid constructive criticism because its a thing I'm not good at.

Well sandman, since we are honest and so on...
I admit that I did leave the board a year ago because of my inability to deal with regular IC abuse. It did get to me to the point my RL friends told me that I became nervous, twitchy and short-tempered and I in turn was aware of the why. Since I was unable to grow a harder skin at that time I did the logical thing and stepped away to prevent it from affecting my RL for the worse.
I am not telling you to change, because honest, you have a great character and the extranet troll persona fits and the board would be a worse place if you would change. I mean it is entirly my fault get myself so worked up over extranet mud-slinging.

Re. 1:
Well the Stalin comparision is not what I aimed for, maybe I have phrased this wrong in the past. I mean I can see how you might have got the idea since as Jaq I have (over-?)used hyperbole in an effort to convey a point. It wasn't what I tried to do and apparently I overshot the target. Maybe it came across stronger than I intended to because of the language barrier, but I agree Jaq stance might be too close to libertarianism for his own good on how the alliance has handled the aftermath. After all he kinda is an auther avatar and I personally do walk the line between utilitarism and objectivism although I do not view the state as evil nor free marked economy as an end in itself. I sure as hell wouldn't vote Ron Paul. But I disgress.
Also, I'm pretty sure Jaq didn't burn anything down... yet.

Re. 2: Agreed, I have often stepped out of the boundaries, but I tried when Jaq pulled something off to stay within the limits of his area of expertease and to keep the physics and tech behind straight (in a magic A is magic A fashion) within the limits of reality and game physics. I try to put actual physical concepts behind his powers (just cranked up to ME levels). It might not have worked as intended or include errors on my part. I can think of two points where Jaq has crossed into marty stu territory though. As point of reference for IC combat I use the ME3 multiplayer vanilla tech marine as a templated. Maybe that is still to close to Shepard. Keep in mind that Jaq was concieved when people like him were the lower end of crazy on the board. Not that doesn't excuse anything, just to put things into perspective. I tried to have his immaturity as a character flaw of sort and having weak social skills in general, but I see now that just might not work when put into context. I think at the very least I try to be consistent if nothing else. And well, you kinda have that megacorp that from my preception came into being overnight.

Re. 3: I actually talked with Nat over this and she was OK with it. We had a talk in IRC on the day I rejoined about that.
The very idea behind the EUFor char is to highlight these kinds of issues (if they should come up in conversation). After all EUFor isn't a space going military and I envisioned them to have a different doctrine compared to the alliance. Imagine the issues one might have of shipping big stopy mechs to the outer colonies.
Regarding absorbtion of military force, well I can see the alliance just doing that to have the manpower to police earth as part of thier SATAE project. I mean, there aren't goverments around for these militaries answer to hell most might even only exist as part of the general resistance.
I went over the pros and cons of mechs and how ME-tech affects them. I think I have good case for them and how they play into combined arms warfare. It isn't about "loot at mah big stompy mech", honest. I don't view them as the uber machines from Mech Warrior, but as a distinct part of combined arms warfare. Hell, in my mind they aren't even the majority of EUFor armoured forces not by a long shot.
If you wish we can persue this IC or OCC in another thread.
That said it kinda is the point of this character to look at these issues.
From the feasibility of mechs to having to integrate into alliance command structure and doctrine I think there is plenty of drama to be had.

Re. 4: I admit, I suck at those. I can't write proper narative if my life would depend of it. I know what are saying and I agree that telling instead of showing is bad, but truth to be told in that area I lack any natural talent. That said it sadly is one thing one can only get better by doing and doing again and learn from mistakes.
What I am good is writing tech documents, like writing down test procedures, documentation for this or that device and so on. This is inherently descriptive in nature and well, it probably affects anything else I try to write.

Now, that gives me ideas.
I think that would like the mech issue be a topic for another thread but here is my OOC stance on it.
Well they are the last organization standing after the war, and many people look to it to sort out the mess. SATAE has already redrawn borders (even if it just for organisatorial purposes). The alliance has the means and the opportunity to bring about one world order. In my opinion it isn't unlikely that the alliance would expand on the SATAE infrastructure they set up and introducing things like election for governour and pairlament for administrative zone #2 or something like that. Would there be resistance? Likely, I think there are plots to be had between insurgencies and the alliance trying thier best to not be the overbearing dictators some see in them.
Of course it could also go into the other way with the alliance rebuilding the nations of before and then withdrawing, but then why would some people want to have the autocratic regimes of the old days back or loosing the stability and order SATAE brought in in general (looking at places like the middle east or africa). Again there are interesting plotlines in there as well.

There's nothing wrong with taking some time for distance and perspective, the end goal here is to have fun after all. If it helps in interacting with Sandman the Character something to keep in mind is that he's not really a troll, he's not doing it for the jollies necessarily, he's got a reason and an argument he's making.
It depends if you want him to come across as reasonable or not, frankly I'm only assuming that you do.
Well not Jaq, but Karsten made mention of it (if you were looking for the specific example). Ultimately the point I'm trying to make here is that less is really more, you can do much more with nuance and degrees and more believability versus just pedal to the metal let's go over the top.

The issue generally isn't gear in and of itself, barring a few specific instances like collector tech or stuff that's explicitly noted to be rare and valuable. The issue is when you can wade through a sea of bullets without taking a scratch or drop all the bad guys with perfect headshots. Not that you've done this specifically but the general idea is

Well look at it like this. Mooks you just mow down are so much scenery, they've got zero actual Threat and don't do anything besides demonstrating that, yes, your character is great at killing redshirts. It's playing on godmode basically, and that's boring for both the writer and reader. You touched on this earlier re: him being immature and idealistic and I just wanted to touch on this here. The former is fine, marines aren't exactly renowned for having the most sophisticated sense of humor ever, but the consequence is that people might not take you are seriously as you would like. Plus, there's almost nothing more pointlessly irritating than a character who is constantly obnoxiously childish with the explanation being: "well he's just immature". If you're implementing it as a serious character point it needs to be developed and manifested in consistent ways: maybe he picks fights, maybe he doesn't fully realize the long term consequences of his actions.

The latter (the idealism) is a decent aim but there are two problems that can kinda stem from it. Done too thickly and it becomes saccharine to the point of incredulity, "I know my best friend just got gibleted by I just have so much hope!". Done too lightly and it's barely noticeable at all. Jaquento for example, despite what you've been saying you'd like him to be, comes across as a deeply cynical character. If he was an idealist he's pretty clearly not one anymore. Protip: don't use other people's fuckups to justify potential fuckups of your own. Learn from them and expand on them instead. I mean, why do you think I'm pretty acutely aware of how you can overstep the bounds of power and have put in loads of work into retroactively justifying how Sandy has all his stuff?
Fair enough then.
There's a difference between short-term, more narrowly focused things and broader, more expansive assertions. It's prudent to be cognizant of said difference particularly given that the latter can affect many more people than just you.
See above, my problems really not with the existence of the mechs themselves.
Yeah natural talent is kinda bullshit, you get better by practicing and training yourself to not blindly repeat habitual mistakes.
You're still not answering the why though, you're mired in the how. Reconstituting any given government (and who's to say they'll all be the same cookie cutter democracies?) is not the same as assuming long term authority. Plus the alliance has the infrastructure to manage, cumulatively, maybe a billion people between it's military and colonies. To scale that up to the long term dedicated micromanagement of individual countries on earth (and let's be honest, supernations are kinda terrible ideas in and of themselves), dissolving better than a hundred national identities (some which have persisted for hundreds if not thousands of years), and processing the sheer glut of a population about twelve times as big as they're used to, all for the sake of "boosting their own power" is somewhat...suspect and that's putting it kindly. I mean they've already got plenty of resources from extra-solar colonies and are immensely powerful by virtue of controlling humanity's only true national spacefaring military without having to do the city/county/country/regional/continental legwork on top of it. To say nothing of why nations sick of autocracies would trade one distant, disinterested and controlling regime for another.

As I said: context is important and while you are more than entitled and, indeed, welcome to make any arguments you see fit re: the SA some are, frankly, more valid than others and will be afforded different levels of respect.

A Point of Order, to head off timezone-based reprisals:

Keep on topic, please - the topic being how the individual in question can improve their writing and roleplay. Unless you control the account Schmidt Solutions, attempts to make the thread about yourself will result in being slapped by a meaty krogan fist.

The same goes for attempting to use it as a soapbox against People You Don’t Like. Remember to pay attention* to what the OP is asking, and answer based on that, not personal vendettas.

yes i did just reuse a link it illustrates what you should and should not do in one easy post i’m not lazy

EDIT: Regarding off topic discussion, I wrote this below before the mod post went up, my apologies for diving further into it.

Well, thanks for taking the time and your input Sandman, appreciated, I does put thinks into perspective.
Hm... maybe it is his idealism that made him cynical at the world around him, having set his standards impossible high? I tried to play as someone who fights for ideals and to give a people a chance to live up to thier best not thier worst. Writing this, that may be appropiate for Shepard, but not a CDN char. Maybe I just don't have the right handle on that.
It was that idealism that made him quit the alliance after the Prime Minister of Eden Prime was kicked out. I try to play Jaq as a person who doesn't do things in halves meaning that he is either completly "in it" or "out". When he commits to something he does it fully. So when the alliance failed him and his idealized version of it, he did follow through with the logical consquence.
But truth to be told there hasn't been much opportunity where I could highlight his idealism or maybe just reality and I are out of sync. I do tend to have issues in RL that how I view my behaviour and how others do is just not in line.
Well, this can be fixed with asking for feedback.

Now, that explains so much... really it does fill in several blanks.
My apologies if I or Jaq came across this way, not my intention. Now that I have a starting point to make adjustments, I can try to iron out issues. Again reality and I don't always see eye to eye.

Re: Alliance
It's what they are trying in Athens if I am not mistaken. And if it is cookie cutter, I wager it can be scaled.
I understand your points, but I do not completly agree with all of them, but again, maybe in another thread. You ask why, I ask why not. There is opportunity and I think when applying subsidarity at each level it isn't an impossible task especially with the SATAE in place (i.e. they are currently doing some of the legwork). Seeing that we give different weight to different points I don't think we will reach a consens about that soon. Would be boring anyway if everyone would be always in agreement.
In the meantime I'll wait for canon news post before I assert anything beyound regarding inclusion of pre-war earth military.

On a side-note, somehow I do find myself arguing for an alliance take-over and yet as Jaq against it... well I'll take it a a positive sign.

To quote Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, "Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?" - "What do I care about the silly stuff I said yesterday?"
But seriously, I admit, I forgot about that. Probably not my finest moment.

Most of the props go to you for asking and actually being receptive to constructive criticism.
Nah that could totally work, it wouldn't be the first time someone built castles in the clouds and then got super jaded when they were reintroduced to reality. Honestly? It's the people who build themselves up the highest can fall the hardest so there's nothing wrong with that idea in and of itself. The trick is portraying it consistently without being overt "HE'S JADED BECAUSE HE LOST HIS DREAMS DO YOU GET IT NOW".
Fortunately that's pretty easily rectified with getting involved in or starting some Citadel based arcs or even just commenting on the IC boards regularly enough.
True, that article did go up, but it's far from uncontested IC by civilians and military personnel alike for a pretty wide variety of reasons beyond "but alienz".
And that's fine honestly, it's a discussion I'd be more than happy to have. Though uh I will say this here It would be a bureaucratic nightmare, grant a fraction of a payoff for a fairly substantial inputs, and there's no guarantee that the military, themselves largely drawn from earth, would be okay with occupying the planet indefinitely. There needs to be a better reason than "why not" when arguing for why to effective conquer a place.

But yeah moving past that: all in all, glad to help man and thanks for listening.