Posts made by Arkandel

@Roz said in Forum Factions:

@Arkandel said in Forum Factions:

@Meg said in Forum Factions:

Omg, you guys have /derailed/ my /totally useful/ forum factions thread into reminiscing. I have downvoted you all in my heart.

I lied earlier when I said I wouldn't want to be in any faction that would have me.

If you make a derailing faction I'll be its king, and rule it with an iron fist.

I dunno, man, that post was pretty on-topic.

What, you expect me to be predictable? That's a good way to never derail anything.

And now we're talking about how predictable I am instead of whatever Meg's topic is, assuming there is one. Can you derail what was never on rails to begin with? Discuss.

@Meg said in Forum Factions:

Omg, you guys have /derailed/ my /totally useful/ forum factions thread into reminiscing. I have downvoted you all in my heart.

I lied earlier when I said I wouldn't want to be in any faction that would have me.

If you make a derailing faction I'll be its king, and rule it with an iron fist.

@skew said in Rusalka's Bad Idea: Single(ish) Sphere oWoD:

@Bobotron @SunnyJ and I have been strongly if single sphere games can work at all. I'm leaning towards "no", unless it's Vampire.

There's just a certain level of self propulsion that doesn't exist in single sphere games. There's also the reality that more players = more play = more players = more play.

I agree on the matter of self propulsion - but I don't think that's a sphere thing rather than politics. I believe that's the driver behind characters being able to generate their own momentum without external stimuli.

The problem here is probably caked into the splats themselves; Werewolf for example suffers from it greatly because it's so fundamentally built around the Hunt, and interactions with NPCs (the Pure, spirits), both of which require a ST.

Vampire gets away with it because - at least when done right - due to politics; they can be other's foils occasionally on an individual basis. To use the same example Werewolf typically doesn't because the emphasis is less on the individual and more on packs which there are rarely enough of for everyone to fit in, and bickering over turfs, resources etc is typically kept to a minimum.

So I'd say the deciding factor is how externally-facing a sphere is. But that's something that can be adjusted by theme and sphere design. If a Werewolf game was done from scratch it might work.

@surreality said in Forum Factions:

It would be kinda fun to make a timeline post, somehow, somewhere, and let people post their start year.

Maybe a poll with a bajillion options.

You know what would be interesting to me? If we can somehow figure out when people drop off or came back, not when they started playing. I wonder if that's just a very random, individual thing ("I stopped playing when I had to move iRL, then started again when Bob contacted me over e-mail a year later") or if there are actual trends that have to do with MU* opening/going into decline, other major games launching to 'steal' players, etc.

Should we talk about GoT here in vague and unspoilery ways or make a new thread to gush over it properly!

Good to hear! It sounds interesting.

Could you elaborate a bit please on the graphical web client's features? What does it do?

@Jennkryst said in Rusalka's Bad Idea: Single(ish) Sphere oWoD:

@Bobotron Fallen World added Werewolf, but was fairly active with just Mage. Because there was PLOT. Also: story xp and rewarding people being active, more than just normal xp.

I think that's the key above all else.

Look, there's a tendency here to think success in a CoD MU* somehow has something to do with selecting the right city, or the right spheres, or maybe just slap the right wiki on it. And I mean all those things play into it, sure... they are still pretty important parts of the puzzle.

But what matters more than everything else put together is that people can log on and have shit to do. If you don't have shit to do, you won't be sticking around for long, which creates a catch-22 as the next person to come along doesn't find you waiting there, so they don't stick around either.

I know it's tempting for staff to just come up with the perfect fusion of cinematic, fanfic and grimdark elements, put them into their dankest prose and flesh out this awesome, brooding mindscape they've been hoping to find in a game forever and then sit back and watch it all play out... but it doesn't end well when done like that. It fizzles, almost entirely due to the reasons described above.

Game-runners need to accommodate plot, to get it happening somehow. If it means that for the first several weeks they're the ones doing that, too, on top of their other responsibilities then so be it... if it means bribing good players to come along and shoulder some of that burden either through PrP or just on-grid RP then that's probably even better... but it needs to happen one way or the other, or the MU* won't go far.

With most games I don't care - some are obviously just put online because their owner knows how to install a stock CoD base and has $5/month to spare for the hosting. But it's frustrating to see sometimes projects I can recognise have had real creativity and passion put in them fail just because their staff is overwhelmed for the first weeks trying to come up with equipment lists or similar distractions as they become disillusioned at seeing their playerbase dwindle; but they made the equipment lists! Look, all sorts of vehicles are on it, along with how many dots of Resources it takes to afford them!

@Cobaltasaurus Something I found really nifty on Fallen World was +poseorder. Knowing when your next pose comes and even having it ding you when it's up is pretty neat.

I need to see if it supports 3PR, btw.

I started in 1992. Medievia IV.

Although I didn't really get into MUDs until maybe a year or so after that once I discovered Wheel of Time roleplaying was actually a thing you could do online, which blew my mind at the time. Whaaaat?

@Ganymede said in RL Anger:

or become staff somewhere again.

Just wait until I get a bit further with my project.

@Catsmeow said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

As a note, I miss a gym with a Pilates class. I use to be soaked (which is gross to some but makes ME feel I worked out) afterwards. It's a lot of work to use your own body.

Back when I was starting out with weightlifting I had gotten cocky; surely if I could push and pull these iron plates my own bodyweight would feel light as a feather, right...? so I went to a Pilates class thinking I'd find it easy.

Hah. Hah hah. Ahahahah. Hah. No.

@Meg said in RL Anger:

• glance towards thread in which she just started making factions and people didn't argue that she had the authority to decide who was in what. *

There are no authorities around here unless someone really, really screws up. We're in a self-sustaining engine fuelled by whining, memes and kitty pics.

Also we seem to be more about cats than dogs. What's with that?

@Ganymede What makes me grumble about these things is that I can completely see myself saying them a few years ago. I was just like that - and I know now that unless there's something medically (in a non-self diagnosed way) wrong with you they are almost trivial to fix.

Time? G'dammit if you have time to play games 3-4 hours every day you have time to go to the gym 3-4 times a week.

Tired after work? What, you think I'm not? Everyone is! But we do this shit anyway!

Can't spare the time/effort? Dude, your body will clear your calendar right off if it gives up on you. You're gonna have so much free time then to put a ton of effort in to fix what didn't have to break.

Can't/won't change food habits? This too is so annoying because... I'm the worst cook in the world. But putting chicken breasts in the oven/pressure cooker and waiting for X minutes isn't exactly rocket science, and adding a salad out of a bag isn't that hard. Done. Plus it's way cheaper than eating out. And this shit tastes good, too.

Don't know what to do? Other than listening to friends, do the same thing you do for everything else; google it. There is so much information out there, g'dammit, all made for regular working grunts and not super athletes (protip: super athletes don't need to google this shit up, they have professional trainers... so all this information is written in the first place for everyday people). I even pointed him to the Fitness subreddit which is so constructive and has so many pointers.

It's frustrating because it's so doable. And because I spent decades of my life not doing it.

Going around in circles with people about fitness.

"I'm constantly tired, my back hurts and I'm gaining weight."
"Well, go to the gym. I can help! We can be workout buddies!"
"I can't, I don't have enough time"

(the guy has enough time)

"Well okay, how about doing something at home then? You can stream or download Pilates workouts."
"I don't think I can do that, I'd look ridiculous."
"... you'd be doing them in your living room man, and you're single, plus why is doing Pilates ridiculous?"

"But okay, what if we start simpler, change the way you eat?"
"I like the food I'm eating now since someone else makes it for me, and I can't ask them to change it."
"Okay."
"But I'm constantly tired, my back hurts and I'm gaining weight."

"Okay, how long do you sleep at nights? Do you sleep well?"
"Yeah, I get eight hours, but my mattress sucks though, it's a twenty year mattress."
"Have you seen a doctor? Or why don't you get a new mattress?"
"I really hate two things in life, shopping and going to the doctor."

<sigh>

@Meg said in Forum Factions:

I will not tolerate MISOGYNY in this here thread! Fixed!

BOYS RULE, GIRLS DROOL

<runs>

I wouldn't want to be a member of any faction that would have me.

@surreality said in Good TV:

I think that's dumb, and you think it's dumb, and probably a majority of posters here think it's dumb, but I think it's a mistake to expect that this is a universal perspective on games.

It's more than just a matter of playing styles, though. If you are trying to play a good Lancea Sanctum antagonist - an uptight, sanctimonious but perfectly thematic person, say - and I go make your life OOC unpleasant because how dare you until you stop playing her, or even more so remove her from play with my bag o'dice the first opportunity I get then I don't just disagree with how you are playing; I'm removing that character from the game.

It's one thing to avoid someone whose style isn't compatible with my own, and another thing to actively do something about it.

@surreality In my humble opinion most cases of PKing - and there are few of them - are driven by OOC bruised feelings.

Otherwise it really comes down to "let's go out of my way to either remove this a major driver of my character's IC growth from play, or failing that, terminate my own character". It just makes little sense; on any given show you treasure a good antagonist; if Littlefinger was eliminated in episode #3 wtf would we be watching in episode #5?

But yeah, in MU it just degrades into OOC pissing contests.

Spider-man: Homecoming was amazing.

@Ganymede said in Fallen World 2.0:

@HorrorHound

I'm Pidge.

Time has been a little limited lately. Plus, everyone seems to be hawking for the Shrike to return.

Pidge is on my +watch. I haven't seen it around. I want my money back.