Posts made by Arkandel

@bobgoblin I think the Celtics currently have everything they need to succeed. They just need time and health - or maybe eventually trading up for a Horford replacement when he gets a bit older.

@theonceler And the Red Queen's War, its side-quel? With events running parallel to the Prince of Thorn's events, but with a different focus and characters. Equally amazing, and the lead character was so much fun.

@jibberthehut said in Good or New Movies Review:

Am I some weirdo who doesn't go see movies for it's message that may or may not actually exist or to compare to source material and just go... to be entertained and enjoy?

We're all weirdos here. We just bicker about our favorite flavors of weirdness.

This is written by one of my favorite authors whose existence I consider a hidden treasure - he's not really well known, but damn he should be.

Red Sister is the first installment of the Book of the Ancestor series, currently awaiting for its conclusion - the author tends to be pretty productive, so I'd expect the third one to come out some time in 2019.

This is how it starts:

"It is important, when killing a nun, to ensure that you bring an army of sufficient size. For Sister Thorn of the Sweet Mercy Convent, Lano Tacsis brought two hundred men."

The book is so varied, mixing together gritty fantasy and echoes of Harry Potter along with some absolutely fucking badass women. Some old, some very young (the protagonist isn't even ten years old), they all placed in the same dying world where corrupt men and hundreds of minor kingdoms have been struggling to survive in the aftermath of a massive cataclysmic event that left most of the planet uninhabitable.

The story follows one girl's story, and without spoiling it for anyone, it's really cool. Its magic system is organically introduced to the characters and the reader without being in our face, and both personal and larger mysteries are revealed one by one, sometimes without fanfare which forced me to re-read pages once they became relevant later on to make sure I got that right.

Highly recommended.

@admiral said in The Basketball Thread:

I won't argue that he isn't the most physically gifted player in NBA history.

I actually think Wilt Chamberlain might have been that. But who knows, when all the footage we have of him in his prime is in grainy black&white ancient videos.

@admiral said in The Basketball Thread:

I'd argue that LeBron is not the better player. He has zero court leadership. Zero lockerroom leadership.

You would be wrong, but it's your prerogative.

@ganymede said in The Basketball Thread:

@thatguythere said in The Basketball Thread:

The Rockets did take the Warriors to seven, not discounting the greatness of LeBron at all but as much as I dislike the style the Rockets played and the Flopping Beard in general the should not be seen as a definite out by anybody.

I still don't understand how LeBron didn't win the MVP this year.

It's because "most valuable" is such an ambiguous term. They should have really called it "best" player.

Plus there are politics involved. LeBron wasn't the first unanimous league MVP in 2012 (IIRC) because one dumbass reporter - who had a vote - wanted to be different and publicly voted for Carmelo (!).

TL;DR: LeBron didn't win because people were 'tired' of always voting for him. Same reason Pop didn't win Coach of the Year almost every year.

@thatguythere The only reasonable option East (who'd trade for him and give somewhat decent assets) is Philly. Covington + Saric + picks isn't terrible.

It's just that any package with Ingram (who I think the Lakers should keep)+Kuzma+picks is quite a bit superior.

And let's face it, what do the Spurs care about this year? With Kawhi gone they are not winning a chip in 2019. It just won't happen.

@thatguythere The risk you'd then take is that, although of course you won't get 'enough' back to remedy losing a superstar top-3 player in his prime, there may be more assets now to get back than there will be then.

Having said that, what Kawhi is doing sucks. He's under a contract. If he's healthy he needs to play for the Spurs or anyone else until it's out.

@thatguythere It's super rare for a team to work out all its issues within the first year. Even the Big Three in Miami took a hit until they figured their shit out, and that was with a roster made of veterans who knew each other well.

Adding two/three superstars to a team of very talented 20 year olds would take some more time. I think they need to keep the core and expand, not use it as kindling. LeBron is who he is, but he's almost 34 now... eventually (?) he'll move past his prime.

@buttercup Slightly different situations but that's how I feel about my Lakers. Kawhi is an amazing player but gutting the team to trade for him is madness, and Brandon Ingram is so young, with a ton of potential.

They should go after LeBron and PG13, and if works out that's great! Hell, they might then get Kawhi next year without trading any major pieces other than clearing salary cap space. But it very rarely pays off to ransom the future of your franchise for a big free agent trying to win right now.

Plus, let's face it, Golden State has at least a couple of more years in the tank, and taking them out during their peak will take a well oiled team, not something put together in a hurry.

@three-eyed-crow Phoenix is coming back. Give them 2-3 years for their current roster to mature - assuming they all stay healthy, of course.

@bobotron said in oWoD - Is there such thing as a good one?:

@Arkandel

Define 'parody'?

Wut?

Many things baffle me, but few as much as debating these things simply because it's demonstratively the case that far fewer players enter MU*ing even as far (far) more people have internet access.

So what gives? Come on, the literacy rate didn't diminish in the time since MU*s' heyday.

I'll give a hint:

@mail faraday=Hello
-Hey!
@mail/proof
@mail/send

is harder to figure out than clicking on "Faraday", picking "Mail", then clicking on "Send".

Back then the convenience of the latter didn't exist, there was very little multiplayer content out there for us to play online than that, and so we learned. Internet users these days are simply used to different, higher standards for usability.

@lotherio said in A new platform?:

While this is the norm to my understanding, there is nothing to say that a discord/slack 'server/room/whateverthey call invite only locations things' can't be persistent with some form of staff oversight. I'm certain a number of individuals do use it as a OTT or VTT (your pref for correct term, but online or virtual table top) and the GM keeps it persistent.

Oh there's nothing wrong about it if you are running a statless system. Otherwise you'll be missing out on automated tools for either displaying information (persistent +sheets, for example) or inputing it (say, XP spends). You'd also need tickets of some sort to get in touch with multiple people and/or staff, CGen...

But sure, for statless I don't see why you can't just run everything over Discord. Slack would be even better but there's no free version out. I'm not sure if you can 'describe' rooms (which would be separate channels, I guess?) in a permanent fashion though, so if someone joins the bar-channel they have some idea what it looks like.

@faraday said in A new platform?:

Yeah that all sounds great, but here we run into some practical issues. We want to have a game server that:

• Is easy to install with very little technical experience.
• Is easily extensible for whatever custom systems a game wants to add on.
• Supports a hybrid interface with multiple inputs.
• Has a really kick-butt user interface with all kinds of fancy UI elements.

Many of those goals are mutually-exclusive. The fancier you make something, the more complex it gets. The more moving parts you add, the harder it is to install. And so forth.

I think we have to be a bit realistic with our expectations.

I really don't think those goals are spacetech technology. MSB is using node.js and websockets right now, and it's not even running over nginx which it was meant for; sure, it took some tweaking but it was perfectly doable. I don't think anything I mentioned is that uncommon - features like a live chat and content tabs are well documented and robust by now, and yet no MU is using them*.

Sure, the end goal would be to have a fully extensible easy-to-set-up platform but that won't happen on day 1. Hell it won't happen on day 366, either; as you noted, even for the game platforms we have been using for years there are complications for non-technical people to install.

But at least we do have them. Sure, it might a bitch to extend and it'd take an effort by someone like @Chime or @Thenomain to do so and make it available to others, but there was something for them to build on for the next 'generation'. We currently don't really have anything that works even on a monolithic level, and covers any of those requirements.

Even if someone built a game and then released it to the public as-is, no promises made, very little documentation, at least it'd be something to build on. That's what we're missing.

@lotherio said in A new platform?:

I'm all for over the web. But why not use weblets and widgets and other API for functions the college kids will be familiar with. Why not ditch bboards and mail for some forum software similar to nodebb. I'd much rather PM and add to threads in this format than navigate bboards. And I'm adapt at their use both player and staff side. People are still surprised with the ability to reply to bboard posts and that's been around. They don't question how to reply here or on other forum/social mediums.

Whatever solution ends up replacing telnet-based MUSHes as we know them will probably be more of a hybrid approach, at least at first. Although my preference is for something that generally looks like a traditional MUSH client (an input line at the bottom, a main window for poses) with all of the additional UI elements added to it(a Hangouts-like chat list on a retractable sidebar on the right that you can hide, tabs for 'channels', etc) or on demand. Do I want to send you a mail? I right click on your name, pick that from a context menu and do so. Do I need to CC more people? I start typing their names in the TO: field, get autofill suggestions, etc.

If we're going to hack, why not hack existing stuff to fit the interface in stead of working from ground up on complete overhaul?

In a way that's what some people are doing, although I wouldn't call those hacks necessarily. Ares already has web interfaces for some of its functions, which is great.

If I can predict the future with my vast prophetic powers though, whatever will come 'next' will be produced by non-MUSH players. A forum or table-top simulator will evolve to the point (or offer enough tools to permit) a persistent playerbase, some way to interface playing in different rooms, a way to customize the underlying game mechanics... and boom.

Most current MUSHers will join their friends who play there, and existing telnet-based games will be deserted wastelands even by today's diminished standards.

@lithium said in A new platform?:

I know several who are brand new to MU*'s. I myself have brought new people into the game.

Emphasis mine.

@arkandel said in A new platform?:

Until we can get rid of a user's need to learn arcane incantations to do very simple every day things we won't be getting many new players.

Obviously we'll still get some people. But look around - does this look like it did in the nineties? It doesn't, because back then it was still the norm to use command line interfaces to use your computer so people were familiar with the practice.

And yet today we have more tools than we did back then to open and run games; it's easier to find hosting, more publicly available platforms to run like Theno's, Ares and so on, waaay more households have internet access than back then (remember when going home from school might have meant not being online at all?), etc.

But now, anecdotal evidence aside, as a whole can you argue we are gaining more players than we are losing? The community once had multiple games with hundreds of individual connections every night, and now other than a couple of Arx, maybe FC and a couple of TS MU* I can't even name any more that have broken 3-digit numbers.

I don't have any other way of explaining this. Does anyone else? We can sit here and make excuses or we can accept what - to me - is pretty obvious.

Until we can get rid of a user's need to learn arcane incantations to do very simple every day things we won't be getting many new players. It's just how it is.

We can bemoan it, we can deny it, but in my mind there is no way the vast majority of say, college students - who used to be the main demographic we drew new players into the hobby from - are going to go from fancy, easy to use UI into typing a bunch of weird commands into unfamiliar programs which in some cases haven't been updated in years to play something they're not sure about.

We either do all of it - 100% - over the web or it won't happen. And I know it will happen (a persistent world to roleplay in is just too interesting, even if it happens organically by a different platform's evolution and not from within the MUSHing community), but it'd be great if it borrowed ideas from almost thirty years of our hobby's evolution.

@wildbaboons said in Good TV:

@arkandel I haven't seen that one yet.. I forgot it was a thing. I need to add that to the queue

The first half of season one is... meh. Then it just gets really good.

The Framework saga was incredible television.