Posts made by Arkandel

@Roz said in A Constructive Thread About People We Might Not Like:

I think that bringing up the words "witch hunt" whenever multiple people agree on a player being toxic or problematic is actually a pretty harmful silencing tactic for information that could be actively beneficial to the hobby at large.

That's a common apologist tactic. Look at what happened when Custodius started getting attacked here, not even just for his past but for current actions on Arx; there was a whole campaign launched by people directly benefitting from associating with him, counter-accusing MSB of being negative and bringing everyone down.

In the cacophony of some people saying 'boo' and others going 'yay' it's easy for the truth to be lost. But at least it's still out there - imagine if MSB didn't exist. How would anyone have known about this guy, even if they had reasons to go look? The in-game forums don't allow it, staff isn't taking action, so what's left?

@Ganymede I use "Arkandel" as my universal @alias these days. It makes things easier for everyone.

@HelloProject said in A Constructive Thread About People We Might Not Like:

One of my big peeves about games is how staff need players to explicitly break some super well-defined rule in order for something to count as harassment or a big problem. Putting people's emotional well-being behind bureaocratic red tape is something I see as a problem

That's coming from a good place. As staff I don't want to go after a player simply because I don't like him, or because someone I do like doesn't get along with them, right? So I want to make sure I'm doing the same thing... and MU* being what they are, evidence is in damn short supply.

It's very often all circumstantial - sure, there's no way Bob and Jane had time to actually roleplay voting you down since Jane only created yesterday and just happened to give Bob exactly the extra Bob he needed. Sure, the whole plan was hashed out on a faction channel OOC and there's a log but there's no way to prove they didn't actually play it out as well. Your potential allies are suddenly getting offers to play and change their mind after you're in a scene with them which is obviously due to OOC +where stalking can do you have a way to prove that?

I've seen all of those things happen, and reported them at the time. Do I blame staff for not doing anything? Yeeeah but kind of see why they didn't also. To me it was transparent but to them less so.

Then again there are times when it just becomes gross. The female staffer a friend of mine went to on HM to report Juerg outright telling her (with logs) OOC she could either TS him or he would chase her out of the sphere, who told her she should stop whining and face the consequences of her IC actions? Now, that lady can go fuck herself.

@Paris said in A Constructive Thread About People We Might Not Like:

Abuse thrives in silence.

Abuse thrives on inaction.

There are plenty of people for whom there have been plenty of complaints, logs, incidents... and none of them satisfy staff 'enough'. They are too circumstantial, the offending player hasn't done anything on that one game yet, or enough apologists are coming up to muddle the waters and make it sound like it's a he-said she-said affair even when it's really not.

If staff are willing to sit on the fence then they walk away unscathed. There's a long list of games where exactly that has happened - or, worse, where the people who stepped up were left out to dry afterwards and faced the consequences of speaking up as staff looked the other way as hard as they could due to reasons.

Where there is no will there is no way.

@Paris said in Fate's Harvest BETA Live (Full Open Soon):

@Arkandel You can use known IPs and make it clear they are not welcome. If they try to circumvent this, add their current one and yank them off the grid. (IMO, trying to circumvent a ban should put a player on the shitlist.)

If someone thinks they're banned in error, they are always welcome to discuss it with headstaff.

Imo, to avoid blocking out innocent players, that list needs to be as narrow as possible. Edit: that risks the player showing up again, but they usually out themselves eventually with the behavior that earned the initial ban.

Known means nothing though. Rogers is my ISP right now, and so are literally millions of people in my city alone; it's trivial to switch to a different IP within the same block by cold booting my modem even without any more technically involved approaches.

It's just a crapshoot. IMHO if talking to the player first and letting them know they're no longer welcome doesn't work, and they continue to try and log on, you're in for a ride.

@Thenomain Yeah, when I say "scheduled" I should have probably just used "offered".

Bans in general are impossible to guarantee. All you can do is either expand your blacklist enough that innocent bystanders are caught by the regexp or pin-point it so much that it makes it easier for a determined uninvited guest to keep coming to your parties, but you really can't keep anyone out of a public game for long.

You can however make life pretty unpleasant for everyone else trying to do so.

@Coin said in Good writin'.:

This sort of attitude just kind of glosses over the fact that being polite and considerate is something that would be great. Like, I get it, 'public place, fair to do whatever!' but what this completely ignores is that we're supposed to be playing a cooperative game. Wouldn't you prefer to play that sort of scene with people who want to play it? Why would you foist it on someone who is having fun playing another type of scene already, especially without asking if they'd prefer what you have planned?

Yeah, that's exactly where I'm at too. We can have various expectations of the players around us - that they don't treat the game as a sandbox, that they make themselves available for RP to more than their inner circles, that they take into account some in-game themes into consideration for their responses (the metaplot, IC ranks, etc) - but ultimately none of these things are worth a damn if they're forced on people who don't like playing them out right at that time.

So yes, my idea of a cop car chase going badly and the bad guys bursting into the restaurant to take hostages might actually be awesome and fun under most circumstances but if I try to just go ahead and put it into motion even with the best intentions in mind ("this is ten times better than a generic bar scene! these guys are gonna love it!") and be met with 'meh' and unenthusiastic responses then what good does it do anyone?

There's a reason we announce PrPs and allow players to sign up instead of just picking rooms people are already playing in to run them. Opt-in is a great thing.

Sometimes you also should consider the OOC circumstances. For example I consider it at least a matter of proper MU* etiquette to ask in a page before I actually join a scene unless it's in a really public place; that is, I won't really check first to go to Elysium but if it's something happening at bar #5 on the grid and it's just two people then I will. People might not want others there which is fine with me; if they're RPing a quiet dinner date then anything I do to engage them would be disruptive unless that's what they're looking for.

Then again it's been known to happen that you'll ask if you can join something already going, get there, and figure out there just isn't anything for you to do. Maybe those involved say they are (or actually are) OOC okay with others coming in but they are RPing having dinner and any attempts to hook yourself in that or to engage them go unanswered. That's a bit more awkward since you now have to consider a reason to extract yourself from that situation unless you know them well enough to be sure actually pushing the matter IC won't annoying anyone present.

Frankly I'd much rather be told ('just so you know, it's probably going to be boring for you if you come') than spend half an hour finding this isn't the scene I was looking for.

Edit:

@Rook said in Good writin'.:

@Arkandel
I dunno, Ark. I could really go with that, since it was entirely IC, and the mob was right outside. That implies, to me, that it is a currently-running, happening-right-now plot, and it is entirely plausible that someone would burst into a room all bloody and needing help.

There was no mob outside before we got there, and (as I remember the circumstances at least, this was a while ago) no metaplot about that sort of thing happening in general.

But basically the "I walk into the room bloody, bruised and half dead, someone save me!" has been an attention-seeking trope for a long time.

Sorry to nitpick your example.

Sokay!

@Auspice I think I've mentioned this before but...

We were in a three-person scene that had been going on for a bit when this guy comes in from outside. Immediately, and without waiting to see what was going on or ask OOC what we wanted to do, he posts about him being bloodied because of the pitchfork-carrying mob outside trying to get'im.

In all my years in the game that was the grossest attention-seeking I've actually seen in practice. I still can't quite imagine a bigger 'fuck you and what you were doing before, from now on it's about me' than that.

@Pyrephox said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

End of story, I'd expect.

Nothing ends, Adrian. Nothing ever ends.

@Lisse24 Would you like to subscribe to my newsletter? Twelve easy ways to get a following! The third one will SHOCK you!

I've lots of little (and not-as-little) peeves but I try to not take them too seriously unless it gets distracting.

My main marker is the signal to noise ratio in poses when people are trying to buff their own legend a bit too hard, especially when it crosses into metaposing. "Bob walks in a room and picks up a drink. That's right, a drink, because everyone knows what happens when this guy gets drunk; people get hurt, blood is shed, the police is called. Oh yeah. And wait, is that Jack Daniels? Damn.". I wish I was exaggerating a lot.

But even aside from those things I've got my own preferences. I like meaty poses; unlike @Coin I'll very gladly take a subtle implication of hair color rather than an one-word description for it, and I value the effort someone takes in describing their character's action in flowery prose - I like prose. I'll also take any environmental immersion offered and try to enrich it - is it raining hard outside? Maybe my PC's cheap shows got soaked on the way over so now he's making funny sounds when he walks anywhere.

What I'm saying is there's a difference between the things I enjoy - but which aren't necessary, and I realize are just stuff I like - and what's actually detrimental to a scene since they're supposed to highlight a player's ego and not what makes a character unique or noteworthy. If they're trying too hard to shove how special they are down my throat it's more of the latter than the former.

I'm not the biggest fan of Snyder's directing but damn This is really sad.

http://ew.com/movies/2017/05/22/justice-league-zack-snyder-daughter-joss-whedon/

I don't think this is a game-wide issue as much as an organic way certain groups get together.

That is, no staff can really define let alone try to regulate a particular type of writing, but we all have our preferences. If I know someone's compatible with my style and I like them then I probably end up playing with them more, and others less so.

What you would call a wordsmith or good story teller might be someone else's nightmare for a number of reasons - they might not be detailed enough, or they are too slow, or they make typos, or... whatever. There are a myriad variations of what we like and of how we come across regardless of our earnest intentions; I might think I'm witty and suave yet some deluded souls might find my poses pretentious and overbearing.

Now... if you're asking for specific recommendations I'm sure you've come to the right place to ask.

@SunnyJ I don't even like beat'em ups (or whatever the kids call'em these days ) but the story and the cut scenes themselves were really well done.

Caveat; I haven't played either of the Injustice games.

However I just watched - as a movie - the cut scenes from Injustice 2... holy shit. It's on youtube, and it's good as anything DC has put out there.

That Superman alternate ending (you might have to search for it separately)... damn.

@buttercup said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

I hope other players who currently feel the same way will at least make it known and it's enough of an issue to do something about it but I recognize that my current solitary case is not likely warranting of action.

They have. I have. Many have left the game because of this guy. Nothing was done.

There's a line past which the attribution of blame has to include staff as well.

Well, I didn't see that coming.

Tom Hardy is Venom.

@Runescryer said in Marvel: 1963:

@Arkandel

I think Kurt is mostly taking a break and doing the convention circuit for a while. Garth is pretty much focusing on the Preacher TV series as an EP.

The last time I heard of Busiek doing anything was in the early 90s! That's a long-ass G.R. Martin-like break he's taking.