[S] Cosplay Question - We Want Your Thoughts!

[Revel1984]

Now i'm curious as to what sort of thing happens where someone has paid RL money for a cosplay, with the promise, at the time, that it was unique and would be the only existing cosplay of said character. I know people work hard for their gold but as someone who owns a Cosplay obtained through RL means (granted, he was a gift to me, i didn't pay for him personally but a very dear friend did) I really would hate to see another of him walking around. That said, i do have another cosplay, who i wouldn't mind too much seeing others of him around if the rule was changed.  

[Revel1984]

I'm just wondering where Cosplays bought through RL come into it, would the be exempt from the rule if it was changed? Genuinely curious as to how this would be handled.  

[Andranis]

I am, admittedly, only picking a couple points out here, the ones I personally feel are most relevant to the discussion. Again, this is just how *I* feel.

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2 ) There are several examples of changes to Soquili's rules that may technically break the "grandfathering" rule in the B/C, but none of these changes have been railed against by Soquili members. For example, when Meeki and I got Hellfire and Brimstone, we were told that they, along with a pair of twin sisters, would be the only nightmares in the shop. Forever. Obviously, that has changed. There is in fact, an entire race built around the idea of achieving a nightmare or other elemental/dragon/whatever you want at the time. None of the owners of the original nightmares made a peep when the rules changed. Likewise, no one complained when the natural breed rules changed. No one complained when the wildlife breed rules changed. In what way is this different?

The thing with the Naturals and Wild Life breed rule change is that there's, at present, an infinite number of this animal or that animal, and no two individuals of the species will ever truly look the same. Even two black horses won't necessarily look the same. But the problem that comes up with cosplays is that there's ONE Nanaki/Red XIII, there's ONE Steve?, there's ONE this character or that character(Until you hit, as I pointed out before, Legend of Zelda... Then we just kind of... Headgrip a little...). People want that SPECIFIC character, an individual with a defined look that isn't just another horse, or just another wolf, or what have you, like with wild life editions. This can hold especially true with even series that are centered on a race that's not even human, where it's set up that you can tell who is who at a glance, like My Little Pony and Care Bears. Orange horse, yellow hair, freckles, green eyes, apples on the butt? That's Applejack! Red bear, big heart on the belly? Tenderheart!

The difference, too, between real people cosplaying as characters, and pixelated pets online cosplaying as a character, is that people have paid money, be it fake or, as Revel just pointed out, REAL money, for the idea that this is the ONLY horse dressed up as this specific character from this specific show/game/book/whatever. They would now have to contend with the fact that they paid money for this guarantee that's just bee ganked out of under them. If we're going to open cosplays up like that, why not, say... Having horses with three pairs of wings? If we're going to open up cosplays, why not, oh... Purewalkers, or mutant paws? Granted, when the harpy Soquili were done, there was the statement that their bird feet would NEVER pop up again outside breedings from the harpies... And now we have hippogryph Soquili, but staff are VERY firm in that Purewalkers will NEVER be available outside events and bribes and staff point customs, and pretty much remain an exclusive to a VERY SUPER INCREDIBLY LUCKY few. Cosplays, while far easier to get than something like a purewalker or mutant... Have always been a "one in existence" thing in B/C, with VERY few exceptions to that rule. As Roarie pointed out - This isn't about changing a rule, it's about changing a CULTURE, and that culture's nigh impossible to change... And it's a change even I don't want.  

[Phail Ninja]

Miss Cherie

First and foremost, I would like to point out that in the above poll, it says to post if you have concerns. If you do not have concerns, there is every reason to think it unnecessary, as much that you may think or feel is covered by the proposed changes post.

However, I am willing to explain why I am in favor of this rule change, and to outline a few reasons why it may be more reasonable than it seems.

1 ) No matter how well you roleplay a character, your interpretation (anyone's interpretation) of that character is simply that, your idea of the character. Even if you consider your Soquili cosplay to be the character, they are by their very nature not the canon character. For this reason alone, I feel that it would not take away from the character that you had.

2 ) There are several examples of changes to Soquili's rules that may technically break the "grandfathering" rule in the B/C, but none of these changes have been railed against by Soquili members. For example, when Meeki and I got Hellfire and Brimstone, we were told that they, along with a pair of twin sisters, would be the only nightmares in the shop. Forever. Obviously, that has changed. There is in fact, an entire race built around the idea of achieving a nightmare or other elemental/dragon/whatever you want at the time. None of the owners of the original nightmares made a peep when the rules changed. Likewise, no one complained when the natural breed rules changed. No one complained when the wildlife breed rules changed. In what way is this different?

3 ) As every roleplay interpretation of a character is different by default, so to are the visual interpretations of a character different. No matter how similar they may be, every artist will render them at least slightly differently. For example, if you and a friend were trying create the same image, your strokes would inevitably be different, the paints you used might be different, and the end result would be different, because your styles would be different. Even the Mona Lisa's sister painting has small detail that are not the same, though it was made at the same time, in the same location, by one of Da Vinci's assistants. Take, for example, the rendering of Harry Potter to the movie screen: although an attempt was made to render the characters faithfully, due to human limitations, they were not exactly the same as the book characters. If we already multiple iterations of the same character in some cases, why not in all?

4 ) It's been mentioned that people like to have their special characters when they can. Everyone wants that special snowflake "this is just mine" sort of feeling. Do they really? How many people in this shop have looked at an old or current cosplays in longing, because they simply were not able to get it at the time. This is certainly a changing paradigm, but it follows in the wake of changes that have been made. It is a change designed to be open handed, which I think can only benefit the shop and the players in the shop.

5 ) Consider how funny a chorus of Elsas would be.

6 ) A number of people have a disproportionate ability to gain access to cosplays and other things. While you could limit that ability, why not instead extend and improve the ability of others to access cosplays? In a MMORPG, it is often thought by the developers of the games that nerfing one or more classes will help to balance the game. I disagree. I think that the best way to achieve balance is to level the playing field by empowering the other classes. This applies directly here. As was mentioned in the introductory post, the Soquili staff would be free to make events surrounding characters, without any concern for whether those characters were "available". While people who already have a number of cosplays would also gain access to them, so would the people who don't seem to get cosplays that they want, including new players and old alike.

7 ) The cosplay rules as they stand are a headache. Sorting through whether a "personal character" infringes on a "cosplay" can be very draining. Arguments are had, feelings are hurt, and nobody goes home happy. Things slip through the cracks. For example, Katch's Lord Loren might almost be considered a cosplay of Lord Loren Soth, who belongs to Meeki, per at least one iteration of the cosplay rules. He barely scrapes by, in my opinion, but there are arguments to be made for personal characters that very closely resemble canon characters being totally acceptable. If we are already accept that this behavior is okay, why not go all the way, and simply allow people to have those characters. It's already difficult to tell which characters qualify, which do not. Why make this hard for ourselves?

8 ) Additionally, per the Soquili rules, no matter how you may feel about it, the cosplay is not the canon character.

I'm sure that I probably have a lot of reasons to vote in favor of the potential changes, but these are my thoughts for the time being.

THIS. Times a million.

And to people complaining that their cosplay should be "unique" - think about it this way. I could make an almost identical copy of any one of your other Soqs and give it an identical back-story. And that would be fine. Why should cosplays be any different? They will be adapted differently, and have different backstories - no matter if they are very similar or almost identical. There will be differences, they are individuals.

Fully support this 100%

Also have to agree, I have been upset that staffers can get cosplays so much easier than the rest of us. I like that you guys get perks, but it's not fair when a character just released recently gets instantly snatched up before there are even any custom slots open for the rest of us. It's kind of disheartening. (Nothing personal, but with the limits on cosplays it is rather unfair).

Thanks for trying to change things for the better ^.^

 

[spelldancer]

I approve of this idea so much.

Frankly, the resentment, frustration, hurt, and fear that the cosplays create are just not worth it to me. Sure it will be a bit odd at first but the likelihood of everyone going out and getting the same cosplay is low. Even if there were ten or more using the same cosplay for inspiration they would not be the same Soquili.

All customs are difficult to get at this point, and even if there is another, say, Jack Sparrow it will not be the same Jack Sparrow as the one already in existence because it would be designed by someone else. So each Soquili is a unique and special thing regardless. The idea that something has to have a different beginning point to have a different end point is strange to me.

Maybe it is time for a revolution. Soquili is so big, has so many people in it, that if there were to be a rule change of this sort this would be one of the places to do it.  

[Sabin Duvert]

Andranis

I am, admittedly, only picking a couple points out here, the ones I personally feel are most relevant to the discussion. Again, this is just how *I* feel.

Quote:

2 ) There are several examples of changes to Soquili's rules that may technically break the "grandfathering" rule in the B/C, but none of these changes have been railed against by Soquili members. For example, when Meeki and I got Hellfire and Brimstone, we were told that they, along with a pair of twin sisters, would be the only nightmares in the shop. Forever. Obviously, that has changed. There is in fact, an entire race built around the idea of achieving a nightmare or other elemental/dragon/whatever you want at the time. None of the owners of the original nightmares made a peep when the rules changed. Likewise, no one complained when the natural breed rules changed. No one complained when the wildlife breed rules changed. In what way is this different?

The thing with the Naturals and Wild Life breed rule change is that there's, at present, an infinite number of this animal or that animal, and no two individuals of the species will ever truly look the same. Even two black horses won't necessarily look the same. But the problem that comes up with cosplays is that there's ONE Nanaki/Red XIII, there's ONE Steve?, there's ONE this character or that character(Until you hit, as I pointed out before, Legend of Zelda... Then we just kind of... Headgrip a little...). People want that SPECIFIC character, an individual with a defined look that isn't just another horse, or just another wolf, or what have you, like with wild life editions. This can hold especially true with even series that are centered on a race that's not even human, where it's set up that you can tell who is who at a glance, like My Little Pony and Care Bears. Orange horse, yellow hair, freckles, green eyes, apples on the butt? That's Applejack! Red bear, big heart on the belly? Tenderheart!

The difference, too, between real people cosplaying as characters, and pixelated pets online cosplaying as a character, is that people have paid money, be it fake or, as Revel just pointed out, REAL money, for the idea that this is the ONLY horse dressed up as this specific character from this specific show/game/book/whatever. They would now have to contend with the fact that they paid money for this guarantee that's just bee ganked out of under them. If we're going to open cosplays up like that, why not, say... Having horses with three pairs of wings? If we're going to open up cosplays, why not, oh... Purewalkers, or mutant paws? Granted, when the harpy Soquili were done, there was the statement that their bird feet would NEVER pop up again outside breedings from the harpies... And now we have hippogryph Soquili, but staff are VERY firm in that Purewalkers will NEVER be available outside events and bribes and staff point customs, and pretty much remain an exclusive to a VERY SUPER INCREDIBLY LUCKY few. Cosplays, while far easier to get than something like a purewalker or mutant... Have always been a "one in existence" thing in B/C, with VERY few exceptions to that rule. As Roarie pointed out - This isn't about changing a rule, it's about changing a CULTURE, and that culture's nigh impossible to change... And it's a change even I don't want.

I'm honestly not on either side of the fence firmly on this issue, but to my understanding, what Miss Cherie was getting at wasn't comparing conceptually the logistics behind having multiple versions of singular characters from established settings vs wildlife, but talking about the logistics of changing rules.

This is a very good point because a few years ago in the shop, there could only ever be ONE male, one female, one mini, and one full size of any given non-horse animal. If someone had a male black panther full-sized soquili, that was supposed to be the only one ever. Over the years, as the shop grew and there became literally thousands of soquili, this rule began to get bent - people would have OCs that would be "like a black panther, but with this trait, because it's an OC that has a black panther pelt, not the "wildlife" black panther.

Ditto with Pokemon, but I want to say, at least when the big pokemon event was going on, they were considered actual cosplays, and therefore supposed to be completely unique.

So eventually, the rule was just tossed out and wildlife editions were opened up to everyone. And no one who had previously supposedly limited breeds or fantasy wildlife soquili complained.

So as far as it goes with it being a mod issue, I don't see how that's different. Plus it's not like RP-mandated restrictions are being imposed that weren't there before you acquired a pet, or a pet is being removed - which are the BIG no-no's, but then, I'm not a mod, and I don't know how this would be ruled on. Just I see what Miss Cherie's saying about there being precedent in the shop about opening up previously limited designs to general use.  

[Kamiki]

Regardless of the rule or not, I think 99% of people who get cosplays at least RP as inspired by the character. Sure, they aren't THE CHARACTER from the fandom they are, but hardly anyone plays them with a personality/backstory that's totally random and oh yeah they just happen to be dressing up as said character.

Sure, they are usually heavily altered to fit the setting, but most people do basically play them as Alternate-Universe versions of the characters they are based on.  

[Uta]

Also, for people who are concerned about the grandfather clause, this is what the B/C Rules state about decreasing the rule limitations.

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Of course, decreasing the severity of rules - like moving an RP-only pet to no-RP - is perfectly fine. But increasing and adding new restrictions and requirements to old owners is not allowed.

We could get mod clarification, but it seems to me that this would fall under opening up the rules and decreasing severity, as opposed to adding new restrictions.

Thanks everyone for just talking about this stuff and not fighting with one another. Good debates ftw.

If you'd like to see the B/C Rules: http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/breedable-changing-pets/breedables-forum-rules-and-guidelines-updated-08-13-2013/t.11762938/  

[Andranis]

The catch with wild life or fantasy wild life, though, is that, RL, there's more than one cardinal, more than one leopard, and each one's patterns form different, and with the fantasy wild life, the source material makes it clear that there's more than one of any given anything. There's not just one harpy, there's not just one merlop, or whopletinger, there's an infinite number, and each has its own tweak to the markings, quirk to the personality. With a cosplay of a SPECIFIC character, that character has a defined look, how they dress, how their hair looks, what items they might have on them.. You can put some specific items on, say, a cat, and say the cat is dressed as this character... But when you take them off, it's still a cat. I'm not sure how to more clearly explain the difference between a character cosplay and a wild life edition pet... But I'm sure there's somebody who could.  

[Kamiki]

All things being said, however, I do think I have to fall on the side of the fence of opening it up.

Even different people playing the same "character" will have different spins on them; look at fanart and fanfiction and other "headcanons" people have for their favorite pairings and such.

In the end, I think something has to give. I don't its fair to allow staff to pick up cosplays whenever they turn in credits, when no else has even has the opportunity to try for one. How many cosplays have their been since the last custom slot opening? TONS, especially from GoT and LoTR, and all of them have been SC or bribes, I'm pretty sure.

Instead of restricting colorists, why not just let everyone get their fave characters and make their own unique story? The Soquili community is large enough I think it can "handle" more than one cosplay.

I know the duplicate rule name has been changed, but people could still give their Soquili a unique name to make differentiate. For example, I have Frostmourne. If someone else wanted Frostmourne they could technically name her The Sword of Icecrowne "Frostmourne" and of course they would refer to her as "Frostmourne" in the RP, etc.

Like a show dog smile  

[Kamiki]

Andranis

The catch with wild life or fantasy wild life, though, is that, RL, there's more than one cardinal, more than one leopard, and each one's patterns form different, and with the fantasy wild life, the source material makes it clear that there's more than one of any given anything. There's not just one harpy, there's not just one merlop, or whopletinger, there's an infinite number, and each has its own tweak to the markings, quirk to the personality. With a cosplay of a SPECIFIC character, that character has a defined look, how they dress, how their hair looks, what items they might have on them.. You can put some specific items on, say, a cat, and say the cat is dressed as this character... But when you take them off, it's still a cat. I'm not sure how to more clearly explain the difference between a character cosplay and a wild life edition pet... But I'm sure there's somebody who could.

I see where you are going! But at the same time, if four different colorists made Elsa into a Soquili, they would look completely different. Like Rhyn's Elsa Soquili is beautiful but she looks absolutely nothing like I would have designed her, for example. I wouldn't have made her a 'Suti, and I would have incorporated more of her costume.

Doesn't make my design better, just different. And if someone else wanted to get Elsa I'm sure their design would be different still.

OKAY that's my final two cents smile  

[Sabin Duvert]

Andranis

The catch with wild life or fantasy wild life, though, is that, RL, there's more than one cardinal, more than one leopard, and each one's patterns form different, and with the fantasy wild life, the source material makes it clear that there's more than one of any given anything. There's not just one harpy, there's not just one merlop, or whopletinger, there's an infinite number, and each has its own tweak to the markings, quirk to the personality. With a cosplay of a SPECIFIC character, that character has a defined look, how they dress, how their hair looks, what items they might have on them.. You can put some specific items on, say, a cat, and say the cat is dressed as this character... But when you take them off, it's still a cat. I'm not sure how to more clearly explain the difference between a character cosplay and a wild life edition pet... But I'm sure there's somebody who could.

No no, I understood your point, and I'm not disagreeing with it. I just was talking about the rules/logistics side of it (the OOC aspect rather than the IC aspect). That the shop did say once upon a time "only one of each pokemon ever" and then changed it so that anyone can get whatever pokemon they want, even if it's already been done.

I made a post on the first page with a similar point that you're saying about people playing their "cosplay" soquili essentially as a horse!AU version of the individual.