Posts made by Arkandel

@admiral I don't think it's a big secret Demon was largely inspired by the Matrix.

To this day I don't know why someone didn't make a killer Matrix game though.

@packrat said in Favorite Minigames:

I have to admit that the gear levels/upgrades system on Arx is one of the things that I really, seriously, do not like about it and definitely a mental barrier to my playing on the game.

I don't want to dig into that one system any further in this thread, but on a more general point for me I think what made a difference was being given the chance to work on something long-termly.

Most games don't have anything like that. We are so very focused on XP we've stopped providing any other venues for advancement in games - it's all of our virtual effort eggs going into this one basket, for better or worse, then we either let it run too full (if everyone has infinite eggs no one cares about them) or cap/automate them (if no one ever has much fewer or more than ten eggs then no one cares about them) into oblivion.

But the games I enjoy are the ones where I have goals - things I want and I can work towards every week. If I can do that through RPing that's awesome - I want to get hooked. It's just that usually there isn't much there to latch onto other than the same systems endlessly recycled and rehashed throughout each new game.

TL;DR - I liked Arx's gear not because it was flawless but because it existed, and gave me reasons to go out and do stuff.

@roz Yeah, I remember when @surreality had a light bulb moment and made a connection about us having played before. I had no clue until she did.

I had a brief conversation last night in which I realized although it wasn't my intention to do so, I could have come off as blaming the victim in this thread.

Making your limits clear then defending them upfront is a solution to a problem and not its cause.

If some guy pitches a fit because you are playing with someone else or whatever, that is the problem. He is the problem.

Sure, there are steps one can take to preemptively address the issue or make sure it doesn't get too bad, but it's still that other person who is the problem, not the one who just goes out and roleplays whatever with whomever they choose, as is their right.

I just wanted to make that addentum.

@tinuviel said in MUSH Marriages (IC):

With a few exceptions, I'd say that many of our number are rather hesitant on the confrontation front - however mild it might be. Are we misinterpreting things, are we being too sensitive, are we being childish, are we, are we... we aim the blame for our discomfort at ourselves.

I know, and it's why we keep getting drama. It's a direct effect of people perceiving this hesitation as weakness so they prey on it.

Which is unfortunate because a tiny bit of showing resolve upfront can save a ton of headaches down the line. Don't argue your lines - it's as simple as that.

@ganymede said in MUSH Marriages (IC):

Seriously, I've had great relationship RP. Fun relationship RP, that didn't always become about the hawt seX0rz. I can think of a dozen folks I have such a good time with in a relationship, mostly because, I guess, I'm not clingy or needy as a player.

After a long time in the hobby I think where things usually break down is where any kind of boundary getting crossed isn't met with an immediate - mild, but clear - message that it's inappropriate. It doesn't have to be a fight or a 'breakup', but it does need to be explicitly communicated and not argued.

When it comes to some of the needier, angst-filled people in our community signals room for negotiation. So I whine at you because you're playing in a room with your alt with someone else and you try to explain yourself, the message you are sending ("hey, I'm not doing anything wrong, man") isn't the one I'm receiving ("if I make your life miserable every time you do this, you'll stop doing this, and instead only play with me"). It's because that's what I want to read, and what I want from you, yet what you want isn't a concern of mine.

The correct messaging has to be explicit. I think you are doing a good job of that, and it's something I wish more people did since it'd eliminate much of the drama. "Hey, I play alts whose RP is separate than the RP we have together. I do different things sometimes, it doesn't mean I don't like the RP we have." If there's any pushback on it, offer to figure out a way to transition out of the RP you have with that person - and if there's more pushback I'd advise to turn the offer into a mandate. Don't argue the point, just declare it; this signals your boundaries aren't up for debate.

Lines. They need to exist, and they need to be respected, else bad things can, have, and will continue to happen.

Uhm, I too find spamming to be annoying, but on its own it's not usually ban-worthy.

Unless there were other factors not mentioned in this thread of course, it seems like a bit of an overreaction.

@ganymede said in MUSH Marriages (IC):

You make me sound like such a fucking bitch.

That was definitely not my intention. I think you are very clear in the way that you interact with people in that you draw lines to make clear where things stand, so that they know if they are getting crossed.

Consistency is admirable.

I hate this archetype. Usually it manifests when someone treats the general channel as their personal outlet for everything about their character, from the moment that PC enters CGen ("SHOULD I MAKE A GANGREL BUT I ALWAYS WANTED A MEKHET") to every detail about their background ("he was a blacksmith in Syberia, poor guy, and then when he was sixteen...") all the way to their future plans ("I'll make him get into crime, and he's gonna have a cool Rolls Royce with white leather seats he'll drive everywhere") and every other thought that goes through their head.

Ugh. We don't care, dude.

@roz said in Favorite Minigames:

@pondscum Wait wait. You got cards telling you to KIDNAP PEOPLE?!

It's not my fault! The card made me do it!

@apos said in Favorite Minigames:

@arkandel said in Favorite Minigames:

@testament Yeah, and for reasons I won't mention here since it's probably out of scope for this thread unless @Apos thinks otherwise.

I don't think it's a big deal to talk about the pitfalls of features or minigames either, and it can be productive. I mean I know I'm going to get a lot of shit when I implement like equipment damage eventually.

Well, it's a good idea to not allow legacy items from being passed down to newbies, which games like WoW figured out early learning from the experience of EverQuest, etc.

The main mechanical reason is their presence introduces inflation; when the game starts a steel sword might be the shit, but six months down the line it's not worth the bytes its ID is stored in. This has various systemic cascading effects, from the fact your game's balance has to be part of an arms race and keep evolving to keep up with the raised bar, to casual crafters being prevented from learning new skills since there's no demand for their lower tier work needed to learn better recipes, etc. It could even mean a stagnant economy since there are fewer actual sinks than it's designed for.

There are also social effects. Not all newbies are made equal (and I'm not saying this is necessarily a bad thing, only that it's in fact a thing) since two PCs who create on the same day could have dramatically different power levels depending on who they know - often who they know OOC. Popular factions could perpetuate their popularity since they have more stuff to pass down than smaller ones trying to recruit, and of course the gap between the have's and the have-not's tends to broaden without a 'middle class' buffer in between bridging the two.

It also effectively removes the early carrots from your game - you're a nobody, but if everyone around you is geared in magical full plate it can leave you wondering if it's worth striving for those newbie goals the game's designed to dangle in front of you, especially if begging for gear works so much better.

As for plots, such disparities have an effect on plot as well. One of your newbies wielding a stick with a nail in it struggles to fight the goblins, but the other newbie with a flaming double-axe makes them explode on contact; it's tough for STs as it is to run things for mixed groups, let alone for the same part of the theoretical leveling curve. Also it affects how players can be rewarded; if your prize is a steel sword (or the resources to make one) not all will want it, since connected players will seek out the bigger rewards right out of the gate, which can be discouraging - you just barely survived the goblins, and the other guy just tossed you his pouch without even looking at it since it's not full enough.

Note that these aren't Arx-specific notes but just overall ones.

@testament Yeah, and for reasons I won't mention here since it's probably out of scope for this thread unless @Apos thinks otherwise.

@apos said in Favorite Minigames:

What are some features that you feel like made finding RP easier, or improved the quality of life playing there, that you wish other games had?

It's not really a mini-game per se, but I really quite the 'ladder' of gear upgrades on Arx when I played there.

I didn't care so much about the coded benefits per se but I liked there was something to hunt in the long term; to do so I needed to gather resources, which required me to pick up or initiate new projects and then recruit or meet with an ever-increasing number of characters to keep up.

Then when I got the shiny, I could think about the next upgrade.

(You guys should have implemented a 'soulbound' flag like WoW does to prevent previous generation items from being passed down, but I digress)

The idea of any close IC relationship - a marriage, ghoul/domitor, sometimes even just being in the same pack - without netting the other player first seems like an open invitation for disaster to strike.

Unless you are absolutely prepared to take no shit, and I mean having @Ganymede levels of it, I would really not advise it. Hint: If shit happens and instead of shutting it down pronto you try to debate it or reason with it, or - even worse! - you just don't say anything hoping it will go away on its own, then you are doing it wrong, and I expect to see it all explode in a Hog Pit thread at some point in the future.

Do you want to be popcorn bait for someone else's slow morning?

@kanye-qwest My whole life I wanted to play on a Lord of the Rings MU*.

My whole life I have avoided doing so because players will destroy the fond feelings in my heart about the setting.

@runescryer said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

@tinuviel Right. Which is why you need to subdivide a MU into smaller groups or 'spheres' like WoD games do.

On the flipside, that's destroyed some WoD games because when they were subdivided, staff neglected to give them a thematic impetus to interact with each other (in fact often enough they were explicitly told not to due to reasons), essentially dividing the playerbase into islands.

That's never a good choice.

@packrat said in D&D 5E:

Eventually the party ends up crawling on their bellies underneath the sword without ever daring to touch it

I don't think I've ever played a character who wouldn't greedily go grab a magical humming sword!

... I don't know what this says about me but I can guess.

@vulgarkitten said in MUSH Marriages (IC):

What's the longest one you've ever had?

About a RL year on a MUD, ages ago.

Eh, it was a different time. I simply haven't played a character long enough to reach the point where he'd married to someone, even though Theodore@HM wasn't too far from that stage.

I probably wouldn't start a character already married to someone, though. Too many assumptions about how their life has been up to that point, and it feels like skipping a lot of roleplaying in order to play out its conclusion.

@wretched said in Spotlight.:

I think, and this may seem a bit callous, but a lot of the onus is on the players themselves. Much of the time the people that end up being in 'the spotlight' are there simply because they look at the scene/situation and they take action.

Of course a lot of the onus is on players - in fact I can think of very few issues within the hobby where at least a large part of the responsibility can't be safely placed on the players involved.

The thing though is you can't really change or fix people. We simply lack that capability. What we can do is design systems and implement procedures to mitigate the impact certain personality traits can have, or to minimize the ways they can be triggered if we can do it without creating larger problems elsewhere.

Let me give an example. Please note it's an example and not an actual proposal that everything should be done that way.

When @faraday pointed out not everyone can get the killing blow on the Big Bad she's right; that means we can have a large storyline where many people are involved, but as long as there's a mustache-twirling villain in the end, not all of those people will stab him in the face during the plot's climax. That person will be the one in the spotlight, and along with them, the Storyteller (be it staff or a player ST) will be under some scrutiny - it's just how it goes.

What if there is no big bad? If for example the objective is to stop a plague then a coordinated effort by players is needed to stop it; someone needs to do the research and figure out how it began, someone has to be the scientist who analyzes these findings and starts coming up with an idea of how to stop it, another gets to go gather the rare ingredients that might work as the cure, and a final party will need to go release it into the epicenter of the zombie-infested area.

In that kind of plot no one is the hero; there's no Luke, no Leia. We did it, redditMSB!

Now the question is... should this be something story-runners need to be concerned with? Is the minimization of jealousy and a conscious effort to spread the wealth something that's fair - or wanted - when plots are designed? Are we better off if we specifically try to create a spotlight-sharing environments or are we hamstringing our own creativity to avoid triggering people's somewhat baser instincts?

@ixokai That's true. And it's not obvious just how much they care about the rules themselves being used in an implicit way - for instance if I type "/cast fireball=ixokai" but the code handles the rest automagically without explicitly showing the dice rolls, modifiers etc, does it violate their terms if fireball isn't in the subset of SRD?

I suspect they still won't care for a non-profit game, to be honest. Especially one where the players, in order to play the game at all, would need to own the game material.