@Tinuviel said in Most active scifi games right now?:
@Lithium BSG:U is less 'sci fi' as it is WWI in space with robots.
Yes, although I'd say more WWII than WWI.
@Tinuviel said in Most active scifi games right now?:
@Lithium BSG:U is less 'sci fi' as it is WWI in space with robots.
Yes, although I'd say more WWII than WWI.
Three people is about my limit for a normal scene. Any more than that and I mentally check out. It's just too long between poses or too hard to follow all the threads of conversation. Especially since most players will pose a paragraph replying to multiple people at once. It's like having six different conversations going at a dinner table and you're never sure which ones you need to pay attention to. (name highlighting helps but not enough)
And then DWOPP got with my PC, and we TS'd, and I found out later, and I was, like --
But I mean, my PC was dating his, so I can relate - even if it was solely FTB. To wit, my comment in the other thread:
Setting a shared expectation up front can help, but there are some who will push things even if you're super clear about no TS, no OOC bleed. It's annoying.
BSGU was one of the best experiences I've had in 20+ years. I wish it was still around.
As you suggest, its part of the culture and learning that one doesn't need to respond to all prior 10 people that poses is essential to getting into the flow of 3pr and such.
I agree with you, but I think it goes beyond everyone thinking they need to respond to all 10 people, and more into everyone just paying attention to what's already going on and responding accordingly. Conversations are woven together in a really bizarre fashion, and that's definitely a cultural thing.
Is there a better design to help filter the groups conversing/interacting between their friends to do so in a less distracting manner?
This was something I spent a lot of time on when designing Ares, seeing if it was possible to design a better 'places' system. To be honest, I came up empty. When you consider that the scene needs to feed into a single text log at the end, and that people might flit between places and be at least peripherally aware of what's going on at the others (i.e., those guys are laughing in the corner, that table is having some raised voices, etc.)... it becomes difficult to truly isolate things.
@zombiegenesis said in Wish Fulfillment RP:
It's not that nobody is special but the baseline average has now been raised considerably. If you're at an Oscar party and someone asks "Who's the best actor here?" you're going to get a lot of different answers. It's more difficult for a single person to stand out in that room because they all have high "acting skills".
Sure, but my point was that objectively speaking, they're still all Oscar winners. The Oscar equivalent of the MUSH behavior would be like Oscar Winner A throwing a fit because they were invited to a party where they're not the only Oscar winner in the room.
(Saw the edit and realize we're on the same page, but already posted.)
@Devrex said in Highlights of Ares?:
I start losing all my enthusiasm if it takes more than a month to do one scene.
Oh, me too. That would drive me insane.
All I mean is that what you're describing is a facet of Asynchronous RP in general, not Ares in particular.
MUs have a fairly solid baseline of community expectations for synchronous RP (more or less). People deviate from those expectations all the flipping time (slow work RP, backscenes, to-be-continued scenes, etc.) but they communicate when it happens.
The MU community doesn't have that shared set of baseline expectations for async RP. Not because it never happened (heck, I was doing async MUSH scenes via email circa 1995; LiveJournal; Google Docs; RP/TP Rooms; etc), but because it happened 1-on-1. Maybe we'll calibrate that baseline eventually, but in the mean time all it takes is communication.
@Derp said in Observation:
We still get plenty of traffic to the site, and we normally just post about less stressful things.
Have I somehow muted a board or something? This is the first post I've seen in a month. The last actual MU-centric convo (apart from the occasional ad or game request) was back in August.
@Ghost said in The Case Against Real PBs:
I don't have an issue with TS, but constructively I think some people pass on players who don't TS; I've actually had players suddenly get electrical storms when I turned down TS.
I don't doubt there are some people who might pass, but for many years now I've make it clear to anyone potentially engaging in relationship RP that I'm a strictly FTB girl, and I've never had any shortage of RP.
I do have an issue with TS - not out of moral judgment (hey, whatever floats your boat) but because it seems to be the root of NO END of drama and toxic behavior on these games - including some of the things you've described here. But I agree banning it is all kinds of impractical and ill-advised. Also beside the point here.
I also have an issue with Midjourney. Though I am not an artist, I have friends who are, and I support them being up in arms about the unlicensed use of their work for-profit on a massive scale. That just goes to show that everyone has their own ethical lines in the sand. I don't think yours re: PBs is any more or less valid than mine re: MJ.
@reimesu said in The Case Against Real PBs:
Frankly, the entire argument against PBs isn't an argument against PBs, it's an argument against unethical players who are being manipulative.
To be fair, that wasn't the entire argument, though it was the one that got the most attention. Others have raised valid points for and against that have nothing to do with players being manipulative.
@Derp said in The Case Against Real PBs:
Nobody gave it a pass. It was called out and acted upon. By two different admins.
It is your right to moderate the forum as you see fit. It is our right to point out when we feel it's not being effective.
Calling something out is not actually solving the problem. It's like if there's a kid on the playground who goes around hitting other kids, and the only thing the teacher does is say "Hey stop hitting". It doesn't actually change the behavior, and other kids will see that there are no real consequences for hitting.
That's what's happened on the MU forums, where for years the only tangible consequence for being un-constructive was getting the thread pushed to the hog pit (where those of us who wish to stay constructive can no longer participate.)
The only way to keep the mildly constructive forum actually constructive is to stop the hitting. There are various forum moderation strategies and tools for doing so.
@reimesu said in The Case Against Real PBs:
What more would you suggest?
If you look at this thread and genuinely believe that it has on the whole stayed "civil", "constructive", and "on topic" (per the rules of engagement), then we are on very different pages about what that means. I count at least two, maybe three people who have bounced or blocked based on the convo here.
Also I'm not suggesting Ghost (or anyone else) be banned here. I'm suggesting that more active and consistent moderation can keep it from getting to that point in the first place.
@reimesu said in The Case Against Real PBs:
I'm watching an awful lot of people backseat mod when they don't want to step up.
You specifically asked for my suggestions; I gave them.
But frankly, no - I don't want to be a mod on a forum that for years has consistently said "thx but no" to my pleas for a different moderation style.
It's your (collective) right to choose how to run the forum. It's my right to be disappointed and frustrated when every conversation in even the "mildly constructive" section devolves into a flame war.
@Ghost said in Bring back the Hog Pit:
I think it (HP) stands more than anything as a recorded history of mistreatment for far, far more people than it stands as a memory of good times for the people who thrived in it, and for the life of me cant understand why the former isnt the more important culture to protect
Burning the evidence of mistreatment may not help them either though.
But I don't really have a strong opinion one way or the other. I didn't read it when it was live, I'm not reading it now that it's locked, and I wouldn't read it if it were in a HTML archive.
I merely point out that a middle ground of a static HTML archive does, technologically speaking, exist.
@Ghost said in I owe a lot of people some apologies.:
It's at the point that a code base used by many, many games (Ares) own creator doesn't partake in the hobby
That's mostly due to a lack of spoons and personal issues, not quitting the hobby as a whole. I think many of the Ares games are lovely, but I have very narrow tastes (which is why I've usually run my own games.)
@Tapewyrm said in I owe a lot of people some apologies.:
Thus far, the answer to this question has been evaded.
Derp gave a pretty clear answer, I felt, about how rules are applied equally?
But you seem to want black and white answers on a nuanced issue. Someone could use the term "toxic femininity" as part of a healthy discussion on social expectations, tropes, etc. or they could use it as an epithet to shut down a conversation in an insulting, dismissive fashion. Same with "toxic masculinity".
Whatever you think of the context that sparked this in the first place (and I have half the convo blocked so I couldn't weigh in on the particulars even if I cared to), that context does matter.
@Hella said in I owe a lot of people some apologies.:
And when you find them? It's worth the rest.
Yeah, I don't mean to downplay the drama and toxic behavior, which has always existed in MUs. All I mean is that -- for me, personally -- the good people and fun have always outweighed the bad. Otherwise I would've quit long ago.
But there's some selection bias there. I don't play on WoD or L&L games, which tend to have more PVP-oriented shenanigans, or Comic games, which tend to have fights over who gets to play (or hook up with) Batman or whatever, etc., etc. That's not to say my games are happy unicorn utopias - it's still strangers playing games on the internet, and sometimes there are issues. But they're not the cesspool of bullying that Ghost has seen, either.
I had just done a college essay on Michael Faraday, and he was a pretty cool scientist/engineer. Seemed fitting for my first staff coder bit.
For PCs, I tend to just use names that I like, since I'm going to have to constantly be typing and seeing them. Occasionally I'll come up with a unique one special to a setting/etc. (on The 100, for instance, they used variants of local place names/signs), but mostly I just rotate ones from my 'stable' of names.