@surreality I still remember the first time I saw an R-rated description. She became a legend on Tyme, years ago, but there were nipples in her description and omg.
There was a scandal around the player in the end which got three staff fired then the game's owner giving up on the game overnight, but I digress.
... Then I played on Shang for a while, and whatever innocence I still had in me was nuked from orbit. Oh, the things I've seen. 
@Roz Yeah, when it comes to a CG game adaptation with a clear 'central' character it does feel weird. Especially when many players will have made different paths (chosen different genders, choices, personalities etc) for Hawke but only one version will exist in the MU.
@thatguythere They can't afford a thousand cuts. 
Which is the reason TNG didn't do that either. In fact it's why there are so few action scenes - budget limitations.
In a way that's what drives plot - if you don't have space laser battles with weird CGI enemies you have talking scenes and dialogue through prosthetics, which is way cheaper.
@Derp said:
Find two or three people and run plots for each other. Your PC can even be in them, just try to let the other people have the spotlight.
YMMV but I could never do that. If my PC is directly involved in a scene I'm running I'd be too self-conscious about it - am I giving him too many breaks? Am I trying too hard to not hog the spotlight? Awkward all over.
I just need a good excuse for the character to not be present and his friends can go off and get themselves into grand adventures without him. Those jerks.
@Derp said:
On Eldritch, I'm not sure it's that much of an issue. You already have some pretty conservative wiki policies on appropriate imagery (I've read them, and I sadded, because there was a picture that I wanted to post where like, the top half of a butt is visible, but it went against the guidelines, so I didn't....).
I've seen oh-so many tops of butts at places like Walmart. So many more than I ever wanted to. Man-cracks everywhere.
TIL: Eldritch is more chaste than Walmart.
@SunnyJ That sounds pretty interesting. Do you have a goal for an opening date?
I got an ovation at our weekly meeting for being the only person in the team with a 90%+ review rating and a productivity bonus.
... Sometimes I wonder where my productivity would be if I didn't spend half my time every morning on MSB but.
I'm not telling anyone how it should be done. If people are comfortable Storytelling scenes their PC is in, more power to them. If I know them I probably wouldn't have an issue going along with it, either.
I wouldn't feel comfortable doing it myself. It's as simple as that.
@Tempest said:
Slightly off topic. I have no problem with TS, in some sort of context, I don't even care if there wasn't any lead-up RP besides one pose saying "joe and jane met in the bar and went back to jane's place", but I get really bothered by people who send random semi-sexual (or blatantly) pages or ooc poses/etc when in the ooc room or alone in some room for whatever reason. And there seem to be quite a few of them.
Yeah, on non-sex based games that's creepy. There's flirting, and there's ... that.
@bored To be fair, although I've no problem with FCs in particular, I don't like the exclusivity involved here. It's not like there's a big roster of FCs people get to apply for if they like, it's a very limited number of them and obviously they'd be played by special people. That's often enough a barely obfuscated way of saying "staff and friends".
Just keep them as NPCs if you really need them.
@tinuviel said in What's out there now and what has been attempted? A codebase discussion.:
And if it's not going to be the same thing, why use any of the same conventions?
Telnet isn't a convention, it is a protocol. It comes with limitations - not only due to its age but also because what we're asking it to provide isn't part of what it was meant for.
What I'm looking for is the optimal platform to play text-based roleplaying games. Being unable to use enrich text or anything above the very simplest UIs isn't in any way making that any better.
As for attracting new players allow me a very simple question. Please answer it honestly. We all know newcomers can stick around despite a traditional MU*'s trappings; can you imagine many stick around because of them?
@HelloRaptor I used to have artwork for PBs - it seemed better to draw a likeness from a comic book for example than just a random actor or model. I had people comment on that unkindly since it seemed (apparently) odd to mix those visuals with real photographs of actual people, so I conformed to the norm. Whaaatever.
The only things I begrudge wikis for is that people use them instead of descriptions (in fact for many wiki pages there's nothing in there other than pictures and a name) and that occasionally there are these absurd - even for MUSH low standards - arguments about who has the 'right' to a likeness.
Phew! I finally read all of that. I guess I was wrong.
@Skaldia said in Kushiel's Debut:
Ok, since it seems Sunny will only address me where her adoring fanbase can cheer her on, let's put on a performance.
This is the only part of it I care to address at this point.
What would you suggest is a more fair place to have a potentially controversial conversation:
A game where one of the parties can get rid of the other parties at will and silence them completely if they so choose.
A forum where everyone is equal and free to express their opinions based on a very loose set of conduct rules.
It's difficult sometimes for game-runners used to having the final word and complete authority to play on a level field but also, sometimes, them's the breaks.
If it makes you feel any better no one on MSB enjoys immunity from criticism for their own screw-ups, and some of us have even become slightly better players (people?) from owning and learning from them from time to time.
@Kanye-Qwest said in Kushiel's Debut:
@Arkandel You fool. L & L is never drama free! They are high school relationship drama + titles.
(Also, what is L&L now?)
@tinuviel said in What's out there now and what has been attempted? A codebase discussion.:
We are what we are because of what we do, if you want to do it too then join in. Else, this might not be the group for you.
I know I'm not here because I romanticize being part of a dying hobby with a diminishing population.
I believe a platform - or the tools to make one - will emerge that can fuel the style of gameplay that no other medium can offer; real-time multi-player text-based role playing in a persistent world.
@lordbelh said:
I fail to see how it hurts anyone at all.
The scenario I can think of is the generic NSFW one where you open a browser tab in public to look at someone's PR logs or whatever and get surprise boobs instead.
@Three-Eyed-Crow said in Kushiel's Debut:
Sunny's account of what actually happened as far as the plot goes isn't, to me, that awful. It's not great, but these kinds of oversights happen and, in my experience, they aren't malicious a lot of the time. I'm also fine with the GM not involving the entire game in something (though something world-changing when you aren't running other events regularly is something else).
But the FB comments and that email posted here come off as nasty, whatever happened, and the responses in this thread from KD staff have been really tone-deaf. I'd like to think this is a heat-of-the-moment response that they'll look back on when things have cooled down and regret, but it still isn't good.
I concur.
For starters the moment I think a L&L {tm} MU* is bound to have some people be more special than others. It's just the nature of the game, it attracts players who want to play that sort of role - when I made a character there, something which I enjoyed, I pretty much took it as a given. There are no objective ways to stand out and when everything is very subjective a lot of social ladders become popularity contests both IC and ultimately OOC.
A plot like this was, to my understanding, never possible to include too many characters directly. It was always going to involve a few. I'd even go as far as to say some of the people complaniint the hardest now, had they been part of it, would not be championing the complaints of those who didn't - in fact I'd expect their protests to be worded similarly to what staff on KD did.
But contacting people to bitch them out outside the game and after they left was inappropriate. As for the demand that such players go back and subject themselves to the inherent authority of staffbits on their own games rather than engage them on a public forum, that was not the best thing to do.
I mostly dealt with Asherat there and she seemed like a very reasonable person so I don't know @Skaldia that well. But the impression he's giving me is that he's the kind of staff who will very rarely admit to making mistakes and who might be very unused to people talking back to him without the recourse of shutting them down. That... is a problem.
I liked my time on KD. Which makes all of this sound pretty disappointing.
@sunny They are massive books, too. Massive. I hope your table is sturdy.
@tinuviel Silent films were once very familiar to their audience.
I'm also old enough to remember when cellphones came out ("what for? Just in case my car breaks down?"). Then when smartphones came out ("I prefer physical keyboards").
Technology changes what we like by giving us what we like more.