Optional Realities & Project Redshift
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@Three-Eyed-Crow said:
@Jaunt said:
Sometimes the best way to burn out a fire is to make it burn brighter and consume faster. Maybe. I don't know. I'd be a terrible park ranger.
You are not the one true hero of this thread, dude, and nobody started being sensible because of you. Even @Crayon is being civil now.
I was joking. Lamely, maybe, but never-the-less.
And I'm also being civil, so long as it goes both ways. My last two posts were pretty civil, yeah?
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@Jaunt said:
And folks here are welcome to submit articles to us, too. They don't need to be an admin from one of OR's core games to do so. We've had several folks submit articles from outside of our own community. Nobody's asked about that, though. Instead, maybe they've just assumed it's a certain way, when it's not.
Why would they want to? The articles are weak by our standards and the site treats our beloved non-automated games as lesser, and in a manner that doesn't make it clear that you're really just a site about RPI MUDs or things that behave like them.
See, people here didn't come to your site. They keep not coming over to it in spite of you asking, it seems. This is very likely because we don't think your site is great, and we don't think your favoured text-RPG platform is superior. (In fact, quite the opposite in my case. Automation was fun for a while, but it just narrows RP in the end)
But, yeah. Obviously most folks on OR (and here) are not professional writers.
Oh, it's not the quality of the writing. Your contributors' mastery or non-mastery of the English language is a separate issue. The articles (or the ones I've read, anyway) just don't have anything to say that this community hasn't already covered, rehashed, picked apart in great detail.
I'd be pleased to advertise on your site, and would be happy to get some MUD players on my MUSH and if some of my MUSH players wanna go play MUDs that's great too, but contributing to OR would not be a feather in my cap, and reading it hasn't done anything for me. Which is fine, but please don't act surprised.
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@il-volpe Actually, the articles don't say anything.
Community Manager vs. The Troll - Summed up: Hey guys, the internet is mean. Don't be mean back, but don't ban people either, because that might be too draconian. Instead, what you do, is ignore the troll and talk about RP! (Cue Nicholas Cage)
So You Wanna Make a Game - Making shit is hard, mmkay? (Cue Nicholas Cage)
Customer Service and Muds - I wrote an entire article to tell you to let people know what you're doing, to handle player complaints privately and to never commit to anything. (Cue Nicholas Cage)
How to Write Branching Storylines - I will show you how to make flow charts, because you cannot make branching storylines without them. Also you should connect all your plots together, because that needs to be said. How do you do that? Flow charts.
Staff Ethics - Hi, I am going to tell you what is right and wrong. What? You say that ethics are highly subjective, surely you must be joking. You're stupid if you can't agree that these things are wrong! Oh yeah, by the way, the best way to have an ethical staff is to have no staff at all! So automate everything.
Saying that we've already talked about all things may be an understatement. Not only have we talked about them, but so has every other community around gaming ever.
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@Alzie Yep. I was being sort of nice, or something. Actual thought when I looked was, "Oh, it's a content-mill, 'cause they've promised to post new articles every week, so they do not care if they have anything to say," (Another reason why people here are unlikely to want to submit articles; being the wageless writer-slave of a content mill is what we call a 'scam.')
My other thought was, "For fuck's sake, if I see one more piece of bullshit treating GMing as a 'customer service' activity, I'll spit nails. Into somebody's eyeballs."
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@il-volpe said:
@Jaunt said:
And folks here are welcome to submit articles to us, too. They don't need to be an admin from one of OR's core games to do so. We've had several folks submit articles from outside of our own community. Nobody's asked about that, though. Instead, maybe they've just assumed it's a certain way, when it's not.
Why would they want to? The articles are weak by our standards and the site treats our beloved non-automated games as lesser, and in a manner that doesn't make it clear that you're really just a site about RPI MUDs or things that behave like them.
See, people here didn't come to your site. They keep not coming over to it in spite of you asking, it seems. This is very likely because we don't think your site is great, and we don't think your favoured text-RPG platform is superior. (In fact, quite the opposite in my case. Automation was fun for a while, but it just narrows RP in the end)
But, yeah. Obviously most folks on OR (and here) are not professional writers.
Oh, it's not the quality of the writing. Your contributors' mastery or non-mastery of the English language is a separate issue. The articles (or the ones I've read, anyway) just don't have anything to say that this community hasn't already covered, rehashed, picked apart in great detail.
I'd be pleased to advertise on your site, and would be happy to get some MUD players on my MUSH and if some of my MUSH players wanna go play MUDs that's great too, but contributing to OR would not be a feather in my cap, and reading it hasn't done anything for me. Which is fine, but please don't act surprised.
Crayon and I've both admitted that the mission statement doesn't use clear language. We'll be changing it. I'm not sure how many times we can say this.
See, some people here do come to our site. That's why we still advertise here. For the ones that aren't interested, that's their right. Very few people in the world would be interested in a blog/forum site about a sub-genre of MUDs.
But let's not re-hash the assumptions that we think non-automated games are lesser, just because they're not the focus of our community. It's just not true. It's just defensiveness.
I love some MUSHes. I love some H+S MUDs. I love some Graphical MMOs. I love some RPIs. I love some PK-Oriented MUDs. I recognize that they're all different types of games. I play all of the above genres. I've created games of all of the above genres.
OR's largely dedicated to one specific genre that's lacked a central hub for discussion for a very long time. That's the reason it was created. It's not personal. I don't see why that's so hard to understand.
What do you want? A cookie? Should we not discuss things because they've been discussed on other sites?
If that were the case, then most of the internet (including this site), would be a ghost town of silence.
OR hasn't discussed those things yet, because it's a new site.
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@il-volpe said:
@Alzie Yep. I was being sort of nice, or something. Actual thought when I looked was, "Oh, it's a content-mill, 'cause they've promised to post new articles every week, so they do not care if they have anything to say," (Another reason why people here are unlikely to want to submit articles; being the wageless writer-slave of a content mill is what we call a 'scam.')
And is being the wageless coder/writer-slave of a volunteer hobbyist MUD is a scam? Maybe it is. Maybe try to be consistent with your valuation of volunteer/hobbyism.
My other thought was, "For fuck's sake, if I see one more piece of bullshit treating GMing as a 'customer service' activity, I'll spit nails. Into somebody's eyeballs."
Some games think that storytelling is stronger when you have a dedicated GM, and those people make it a core feature of their game. I personally think it depends on what kind of story your game is trying to tell.
But, I've certainly not come here and said, "MUSH stories are too metagamey to be organic, because they allow players to create all of the story content with little super-vision or guidance from a dedicated staff GM." Saying something like that would only prove that I have a marginalized view of that different approach, and it'd be wrong.
Just like your view is marginalized and wrong. And just one post after you had the balls to tell me that I was the one looking down at you, too.
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@Arkandel said:
@BetterJudgment True! Unlike the rest of what we do and talk about here which is guaranteed to pass the test of time with flying colors.
Did I say it was any different?
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@Jaunt said:
I'm here ironically.
This, here, is why I've been posting about booze. Pick up your bottle of choice, gents. The drinking game begins anew.
Other than that, WTFE has the right of it: I'm here to counter-troll trolls, until it's not worth it to me anymore.
I think you mean @Thenomain here.
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@Jaunt said:
See, some people here do come to our site.
Name three. You keep failing to substantiate this.
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I actually have read some of the OR forum. It doesn't particularly appeal to me (the person who thought the Rape Enthusiasts thread was the height of pushing-the-envelope humor did not make me want to go back often, but so it goes). I don't h8 it on principle. It doesn't have a ton of content that interests me at the moment (a lot of the threads are things that've been discussed twenty times on boards like this over the decades, same with the articles), but maybe that'll change. I like the idea of text-based gaming enthusiasts doing stuff, very generally, even if I'm meh on some of that stuff.
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Here I'd like to introduce my latest obsession in booze. The first bottle here is the first taste of this stuff I had.
This was given to me by a friend who'd travelled to Inner Mongolia and wanted to bring back something unique and unexpected. He succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.
Now this particular bottle is not an exceptionally good one. It's 38%/76 proof and it's the tourist-grade stuff that's sold in souvenir shops. The bottle inside even had just a crimped, beer bottle-style cap! (Luckily I had kept the cork-based cap from a bottle of Wild Turkey for random reasons and it fit this bottle perfectly.)
Still, despite not being brilliant quality, it was a fascinating flavour. This stuff is distilled 马奶酒/kumiss, kumiss being a "wine" or "beer"-like substance (for want of a better term) made from mare's milk.
Yes, horse milk.
Traditional kumiss is consumed in roughly the same space that people drink wine or beer with a meal. This stuff, however, is double-distilled after fermentation to give you the essence of kumiss without the cloudy stuff. The resulting flavour is ... well, I describe traditional 白酒/baijiu as "what diesel would taste like if diesel tasted good". This stuff tastes like what diesel would taste like if diesel tasted good and were flavoured by additional whey.
Now, as I said, this was tourist-grade stuff and there were some unpleasant aftertastes in it. I wanted to test if this were an inevitable part of kumiss liquor or if this was just an expression of the quality. The stuff tasted good enough, but I wanted to see if I could get more. I went to Taobao and hunted around for some good stuff: on the expensive side of the mid range. I found this:
This is a much higher grade of kumiss liquor. Distilled to 52%, it could go one of two ways: either the alcohol content would distract from the flavours by its burn (thus removing the awesome parts I liked) or the good flavours would be more concentrated and shine through past the burn.
I'm happy to report that the latter is true.
Despite having a lot more alcohol, thus with the commensurate increase in alcohol burn, the awesome flavours of kumiss far overpower the pain. If anything this stuff goes down smoother and with less of a jolt than the weaker stuff. It has rapidly grown to become my favourite form of hooch (to the point that with all the extra drinking that Tricky Dicky, the asthmatic pit bull is forcing on me I'm rapidly running out and will have to order more). I'll definitely be re-ordering this, and I'll be trying out a bottle that's on the lower end of the expensive scale as well.
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Seriously, get your own thread for your booze photos.
I have a waggish sense of humor.
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@WTFE said:
@Jaunt said:
Other than that, WTFE has the right of it: I'm here to counter-troll trolls, until it's not worth it to me anymore.
I think you mean @Thenomain here.
*sip*@Misadventure, he's playing the Wora drinking game, taking a sip every time Jaunt posts for his own amusement.
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Maybe we need the rules posted on this site.
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@Misadventure said:
Seriously, get your own thread for your booze photos.
I do have my own thread for booze photos. This one.
@Thenomain said:
@Misadventure, he's playing the Wora drinking game, taking a sip every time Jaunt posts for his own amusement.
Well, I'm taking a shot, not a sip. (Probably unwise with Tricky Dicky around.) And I'm posting the photos to give people possible options for their own sips/shots.
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Shot. I don't sip. I mean seriously, do you think I'm going to write long love letters to booze from a sip!?
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@Jaunt said:
Crayon and I've both admitted that the mission statement doesn't use clear language. We'll be changing it. I'm not sure how many times we can say this.
So do it. The amount of time it takes to replace... oh, never mind. Here:
Optional Realties is a community and design blog for text-based, online RPGs with automated character actions and effects. We focus on character and story-drive games that include permanent character death as a feature. While many call this an RPI MUD, our focus also includes games that use other codebases (MOO, etc) to create a similar player experience.
Optional Realities is a place where we acknowledge that we have a lot more in common than what separates us, but nevertheless our focus is on a narrow style and platform of play, because reasons.
OR's largely dedicated to one specific genre that's lacked a central hub for discussion for a very long time. That's the reason it was created. It's not personal. I don't see why that's so hard to understand.
It isn't. It's hard to understand why you folks find it hard to understand that you're gonna get trounced when you advertise a community that's not inclusive of all MUs, saying you want to bridge the gap between formats, failing to be clear that it's not inclusive or rather, actively claiming it is, and excluding the favoured format of the community where you're advertising
And is being the wageless coder/writer-slave of a volunteer hobbyist MUD is a scam? Maybe it is. Maybe try to be consistent with your valuation of volunteer/hobbyism.
What's inconsistent about it? I have several volunteer positions. I do them because I think the work is important, or I find it fun, or it pertains to my interests, or it offers good perks, or it allows me opportunity for professional development. Writing articles for OR does none of these for me. The earlier response about how we could submit articles, but nobody'd asked, seemed to me to imply that you folks think we ought to be honoured to.
Just like your view is marginalized and wrong. And just one post after you had the balls to tell me that I was the one looking down at you, too.
What view are you even talking about? I never said anything about having dedicated GMs or not having them. I said I don't like a "customer service" model of GMing. That's because the players are not my customers. I don't owe them anything. They're my guests. I treat them with fairness and courtesy because I'm not gonna be a dick to my guests, and I offer them game because that's what I invited them over to do.
"... you'll find the story doesn’t end how you think, and the most important characters aren’t who you expect.” - Penny 40 to Derek, The Magicians S04E07 ‘The Side Effect’
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That "customer service" model thing is, I think, an artifact of the sales persona leaking through again.
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@WTFE said:
That "customer service" model thing is, I think, an artifact of the sales persona leaking through again.
Well there -are- some MUDs that are run for profit. They do some pretty cool things to keep players interested, both story-wise and other-stuff-wise. But they don't meet the OR terms so I don't believe they are included there. I mentioned them earlier before I did the thing where I said I'd 'said everything I had to say' and then started adding stuff again because oops, but I really have kind of covered it all.
I am with @Three-Eyed-Crow. I did go and glance around. I saw in my first cursory glance months ago just uncomfortable sexist ugh, and if there was worthwhile discussion behind/around it, it didn't stand out. The most active thread at the time was something about how it was impossible for female players to get along, ever, and started by the admin of one of the featured games. (I think). No thanks. I get that they are trying to make something happen, but it might take some work to get there. Also do we have stats on the male to female ratio on MUDs vs on MUSHs? I have a feeling they're not the same. Just a guess though. Anyway, carry on with your thing here.
