I've never been much of a presence on any online forum over the years despite being a member of a handful of them. I'm more of a reader/learner/watcher and only tend to surface if, after my self-imposed 24 hour rule has expired or I'm just too fucking appalled not to, voice whatever opinion I think I need to share. Sometimes a well-timed (or so I think at the time) gif, here or there, but I have never been any sort of staple or pillar or relied-upon villain on these sorts of things.

When things blew up, I was mostly occupied with important RL stuff and only gleaned a bit here and there from skimming the board and hearing from others about it all. With some time to settle back (if briefly) into normal life, I realize how many really awesome people were part of this community. People I relied on to voice things I could never find the right words for. People who would just as soon try to see someone else's viewpoint as they might tear them apart for it. Honest, frank, bold, and often humorous, many of them spoke up when a multitude of others maybe didn't feel brave enough. From kind acquaintances to dear friends, they were first among the banned. More spoke up, and more were banned, in a fashion that seemed to go utterly against any of the other agonized, weighted, and/or well-debated ones in the past. Instead of just walking away from the fire, gasoline was tossed on it, and I was sorry to see it end in a way it didn't need to.

I don't know if this post makes me bannable or not, and frankly I don't care. The whole thing may be deleted for all I will know. I won't be logging back in, either way, because I can't bring myself to really respect MSB in this new incarnation, whatever that may be. "lol who the fuck is Tori anyhow?" It's no big consequence, by any means, but I didn't want to just go quietly either.

@deathbird @silverfox

This is how I felt when Austen came off the roster somewhat. New fam (and Ida's only PC fam) can be nerve-wracking. He is sooo awesome and we fell into such an easy and snarky sibling thing that gosh - it was worth waiting for him to get such an amazing player.

The Gwenna one I did when we were all playing with it - I may do an Ida later

Having a character I play added as a part of a chargen's relationships. I signed up for the possibility months ago, but it's still like - hey you, we trust you with our new person! It gives me good feels in a time when good feels are in short supply

AAAAAAAAH

ETA (because I suck at this little laptop I take to hotels) LITERALLY BALANCING THE BOOKS I love this so, so much.

@krmbm said in Is this hobby on it's last legs?:

@Tori said in Is this hobby on it's last legs?:

now my kids are in college so.

Why you gotta do things like that to people...

Ahahaha! I wholly maintain that my kids have grown at twice the speed of normal humans, rather than the alternative:

I hope the nursing home they put me in has good wifi.

I'm now in this weirdish limbo now where I've done Christmas already (my beloved spawn go to their father's this year) and I am out of things to do until New Year's when I take down all things Christmas. I think a lot of my coping was continuously Doing Things and now I'm kind of out of things to do. Except I didn't do a lot of the usual things - I didn't put out light-up Santa T-Rex and I didn't make everyone at work holiday treats. And I am fucking tired - too tired to rp, too tired to really video game, even. Like too tired to try, period.

It's weird, too, because I am fighting the usual traffic and going to work like things are normal, and yet they feel so horribly not normal at all. I guess I'm losing what I thought were my coping abilities at this point.

@Testament It's been a 2020 - I don't think any of us are bad friends as we all try to navigate through it.

I feel like I tend to be a 'get off my lawn!' type, but looking back, I realize I have adjusted as the formats have, and suspect that if there's a game that grasps me, I'll play it even if I have to figure out new stuff. So much has just been better, too - no more dialing in from my commodore64 via a 5" floppy and whopping 300 baud or having to use the computer lab telnet at school (thank goodness).

I mean, I may wah about it a little, with big changes - like when I had to give up SimpleMU if I wanted all the pretty colors - but I really dug the format of the Ares game I played. There was still a place to log in, though, outside of the web, with the black background and scrolling text, but I enjoyed the web rp I did, too. I didn't even think about it being different, I guess? It was just rp - but, again, it did have what I am used to available.

I kinda feel like it's when people asked me if I thought I would still be doing this once I had kids and was out of college. I was like, oh /please/, pft no, as IF! Yeah well, now my kids are in college so.

@Snackness, to follow up on @Too-Old-For-This, I live just three miles east of the Everglades, ten miles west of the ocean, and have a guest room AND a pool...y'know. If you had a reason to visit just RANDOMLY.

I've never been much of a presence on any online forum over the years despite being a member of a handful of them. I'm more of a reader/learner/watcher and only tend to surface if, after my self-imposed 24 hour rule has expired or I'm just too fucking appalled not to, voice whatever opinion I think I need to share. Sometimes a well-timed (or so I think at the time) gif, here or there, but I have never been any sort of staple or pillar or relied-upon villain on these sorts of things.

When things blew up, I was mostly occupied with important RL stuff and only gleaned a bit here and there from skimming the board and hearing from others about it all. With some time to settle back (if briefly) into normal life, I realize how many really awesome people were part of this community. People I relied on to voice things I could never find the right words for. People who would just as soon try to see someone else's viewpoint as they might tear them apart for it. Honest, frank, bold, and often humorous, many of them spoke up when a multitude of others maybe didn't feel brave enough. From kind acquaintances to dear friends, they were first among the banned. More spoke up, and more were banned, in a fashion that seemed to go utterly against any of the other agonized, weighted, and/or well-debated ones in the past. Instead of just walking away from the fire, gasoline was tossed on it, and I was sorry to see it end in a way it didn't need to.

I don't know if this post makes me bannable or not, and frankly I don't care. The whole thing may be deleted for all I will know. I won't be logging back in, either way, because I can't bring myself to really respect MSB in this new incarnation, whatever that may be. "lol who the fuck is Tori anyhow?" It's no big consequence, by any means, but I didn't want to just go quietly either.

@testament said in General Video Game Thread:

I KOTOR 2 that wasn't a hot garbage fire in the second half of the game because it wasn't finished and just pushed out the door.

I love Obsidian but goddamn they cannot catch a break when being given time tables.

Also, there's never going to be a Jade Empire 2 or remaster and I will forever hold that against BioWare.

I got a mod on Steam, I think, a few years ago that was a bunch of restored content for KOTOR2 and I reaaaally enjoyed the playthrough. It wasn't perfect, by any means, but def made the game a bit better.

I will never forgive them for no Jade Empire 2, especially as it seemed they WERE working on one and then ditched it. It was probably my favorite Bioware game.

@runescryer said in General Video Game Thread:

Just announced at PlayStation Showcase...

Cinematic Trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aw9RaACjZmM&ab_channel=IGN

@derp said in Antagonistic PCs - how to handle them:

It's never the villains that you have to worry about.

It's usually the heroes coming in and getting a whiff of anything opposed to their thing with an antagonist tag and swooping in like some kind of demented paladin determined to crush it into a fine red paste.

For the one or two antagonistic characters I've played - it was very much this. I played an Imperial who eventually defected from the Empire to the Rebellion. It wasn't a real OOC secret that the character was a 'bad guy,' but I didn't go around being all full-on crush all rebels either. I think I had good OOC relationships with most players, which helped a lot. Having a story/side-story that wasn't dependent on Stopping The Good Guys (or, for others, Stopping The Bad Guys) also helped - avenues of story to focus on that weren't just Empire vs Rebellion. Areas to rp whether neither faction could fight also helped. It allowed for intense rp restricted from going too far, for lack of better words.

What's always stuck in my mind about the character, though, was how often a handful of the 'good guy' PCs would want to meet to "talk" after the character joined the Rebellion. They'd then spend the scene trying to bait and push the character into Doing Something - so they could react all Good Guy, I guess? I don't know. At that point the character was barely antagonistic I suppose, but it was definitely a thing.

Both of the characters I mentioned were on roster games, and ones I did not write myself to play. I don't know if that hurts or helps. The 'I'm just playing the part!' verses the 'I wrote myself a badass' could go either way.

@Tributary I love it SO MUCH!

The Gwenna one I did when we were all playing with it - I may do an Ida later

Oops also! I was just like GWENNA CAT PLZ and I'm kinda glad I didn't give insight because it came out better than anything I could have suggested. The colors, books, tea cup like aaaaaah beyond.

@crawfish said in Crafting Thread Part ?:

Also that chain was a pain in the handcramp.

I LOVE that chain - the whole pic like

Maaaaaan, all the nostalgia feels. I actually found my old Dragonrider's Guide in my garage a couple of summers ago while cleaning it out. Surely a sign from the universe.

@crawfish said in Crafting Thread Part ?:

Holy crap guys House Sanna is getting a cat family portrait. That's 8 cats.

I miiiight be partially responsible for this - zero regrets! ️ These are all so amazing.