Posts made by Arkandel

@lordbelh My actual question is... if everything is new - characters, story. game even - then why Reno?

@Groth said in Harassment in VR, there's something we can likely learn from this.:

The problem is that the cases where you have one obviously creepy person pestering other people that you can shut down are relatively rare.

The more common situation is that the people played together, one or both of them took things OOC and they didn't work out and now everything is a drama fest and if you simply kicked out everyone making inappropriate ooc contact you'd end up with a playerbase of about 5 people.

Not really. For starters I said nothing about kicking anyone out; what staff does depends on the severity of what happened. There is more than one way someone can be offensive. I am the last person here who'd suggest every problem must be dealt with the banhammer's fall.

What I am saying is that the standard for what constitutes an offense in the first place must be staff's, and that if a player violates that standard they need to take action on their own accord. No waiting for someone to file a formal complaint or to tell them what happened was too much - it's staff, not the potential victims (I don't like the term but it will do) who must determine just what 'too much' means.

So if someone took things too far, or if there was inappropriate OOC contact, then staff must absolutely get involved. Drama very, very rarely occurs because staff intervened early, it festers when they don't.

@Meg It's obvious he

@Lisse24 I hope your nephew/niece pulls through. It sounds like there's quite some fight left in the lil' one's tank.

But yes, fuck people who make an agenda item out of your life.

@Monogram said in 2016-2017 Basketball Thread:

5. Charles Barkley needs to shut up.

I love Chuck. He's doing his job, which is being vocal. And being Chuck, he loves his job.

@Ganymede said in Harassment in VR, there's something we can likely learn from this.:

But I meant what Player A wants staff to do should in no way limit what staff actually does, as there may be a Player B, C or D who aren't talking to staff at all, but who are getting poached as well by the offending player.

Of course not; however, you can't even begin to formulate a plan on how to address the situation without starting with the complainant and respecting their wishes to some extent.

I'll of course agree with the part about respecting their wishes 'to some extent'.

But as an example let's say I'm a creeper. I look at your super-hawt PB and start sending you flirty pages every time you log on (thank you, +watch) followed by quick nagging to play with me; and if are you playing with Loki... why? You said we'd play soon but it's been a day since we played last. Why are you in a bedroom? Lol, just kidding, hah-hah. But seriously, why are you in a bedroom?

So you tell me to fuck off. You might not even think much of it because you've handled creeps before and I didn't even register as something more than an inconvenience between poses. So yay you, you handled this one! And when you mention it to staff it's kinda in passing with a "eh, no big deal though, it's over now" disclaimer on it because to you it wasn't anything extreme.

Two things though:

1. To someone else it might be enough to ruin their fun completely, or leave the game, or be guilted into playing with me just to shut me up.

2. The only standards regarding "am I a creeper?" should be staff's. Else the creeper bar is all over the place depending on who they ask and their particular tolerances.

It's important to handle these incidents early, either way. Else they fester.

@ThatGuyThere said in Is there a basics of CG out there somewhere?:

I definitely agree that communication before approval/cgen between player and staff would be ideal and should happen more then it does, however that is not the situation on the ground on any game I have been to recently. The last time I got the feeling that the person approving me was actually looking over my character besides a quick math scan and error check was Haunted Memories.

It depends on what you expect 'approval' to do. If it's only a check to make sure the character isn't horrible, or that the numbers add up, then that's one thing; but I think that's not useful enough to enforce what we've been referring to as the waiting game in this thread. All of it could happen past CGen, after all, allowing the character to be playable in the mean time.

My counter-example was on Arx. When I made a character there the interaction I had with staff about proving he wasn't inappropriate or that his stats were okay took... probably a couple of minutes. No shits were given.

On the other hand Apos had probably an hour's worth of a talk with me pointing out different ways his background could he shaped, things I could take advantage of from the game's history, ways I could make him relevant to his House. And instead of it being a waste of everyone's time and an annoyance it was actually something truly useful - it improved how I played the game.

Anything standing between a player and the game which can be automated, should. Everything that can't should either advance gameplay or be removed.

@RnMissionRun said in Wiki and You:

Also, I really really dislike it when I log on to a new game, have questions and staff point me at a wiki page. I suspect that's just me though.

But is it that different if they point you to a help file instead? One spams you less, the other requires that you hit alt-tab.

@Ganymede said in Harassment in VR, there's something we can likely learn from this.:

I don't recall stating only one purpose for talking to Player A.

That's what I got from your earlier post.

My question is: what does Player A want staff to do? Have you had that discussion with her yet?

If I'm mistaken it wouldn't be the first time I'm wrong. But I meant what Player A wants staff to do should in no way limit what staff actually does, as there may be a Player B, C or D who aren't talking to staff at all, but who are getting poached as well by the offending player.

@Lotherio Reasons why I like wikis:

1. Why not? I don't get this 'it's not part of the game' concern (although I've nothing against people thinking it, it's their right); lots of non-MU* games have wikis and forums - in fact nearly all of them. I've never heard of anyone claim WoW has an out-of-game forum and that's a bad thing.

2. You can hang things such as maps images, format long lists into tables so they're easier to read, include hyperlinks to reference material - all things you can't due due to telnet limitations.

3. Information is easier to navigate going back and forth without menus spamming the living crap out of your screen every time you view an index.

4. Searchable information. Good luck finding that one keyword you remember seeing somewhere on a help file (or was it in a post? then you're really screwed) in-game.

5. Since you can't edit bbposts custom pages are far more suitable for many tasks. For instance I've used a 'plot index' before, pointing to all the logs in a particular story I'm running along with some basic information regarding what it's about OOC, hooks into it, what people might already assume they know IC regarding it, etc. If I had to do it on a board I'd need to delete the old one and repost every time I want it updated.

Wikis aren't just a place to hang hawt PBs on otherwise useless, static character pages. That's a very unfair oversimplification.

@Ganymede said in Harassment in VR, there's something we can likely learn from this.:

@Arkandel said in Harassment in VR, there's something we can likely learn from this.:

As you know I usually err on the side of being cautious with staff involvement unless it's actually necessary.

That's why it's important to talk to Player A, the complainant. If you don't know what she's looking for, you cannot be sure of what is needed.

Of course you should talk to the complainant (in fact, even if she's not complaining per se, it's actually pretty common for people to just mention this off the record without filing a grievance). But not for this purpose.

What matters here is if you, the game runner, feels the offending player should be on your game or not. If they are not then it's also up to you to take steps, regardless of the complaints you are perceiving; if he's being a creeper to that one player who happened to be on your radar it's quite likely he'll be pulling the same things to others who are not.

@Ganymede said in Harassment in VR, there's something we can likely learn from this.:

I concur with @WTFE that the absence of a direct complaint is irrelevant. My question is: what does Player A want staff to do? Have you had that discussion with her yet?

As you know I usually err on the side of being cautious with staff involvement unless it's actually necessary.

In these cases I think staff involvement is necessary. The reason is simple: Player A might for any number of reasons not want to do something about it; for instance they might not want to look like the bad guy, or they're worried about OOC/IC consequences, or they decide to leave the MU* instead of dealing with it, or simply they think they can handle the creeper. But someone else might not.

The point is this though - if you, as staff, notice someone being a creep then you need to be proactive. Don't wait for a 'reason' or a report. Just act. It will save you a lot of headache in the long run and it will spare your game perfectly good players who'd otherwise leave without saying anything. Those aren't documented, they don't need to make dramatic posts detailing the reasons for their departure - they'll just stop logging on.

It's a true lose/lose situation. If you see it, act on it.

I shudder to think what these women are dealing with at these game/technical conventions filled with tired, stressed, male nerds with suspect social skills to begin with.

@ThatGuyThere said in 2016-2017 Basketball Thread:

@Arkandel said in 2016-2017 Basketball Thread:

Or the Wolves - Thibs was a great pick, adding a defensively minded guy to work on a young, long roster.

I know this is likely the irrational fan in me talking, but I fully expect Thibs to turn the Twolves into a contender in about 3 more years.

If KAT continues to progress as he's projected and given how good that roster is already, I could coach them and they'd be contenders in 3 years.

@Warma-Sheen said in 2016-2017 Basketball Thread:

@Arkandel I gotcha then. I'm all for building up a great team with drafts and coaching or even bringing in role players in free agency that fit your team. And yeah, the NBA system already isn't great for seasonal enjoyment, but they keep making it worse.

Silver has actually complained about it but that's just how it is. The owners will never vote to change the system in any substantial way any time soon. The regular season is just a preview, that's why we keep seeing players rested, given minimal minutes etc - why tire LeBron for 40 minutes over 82 games when he can play 30 and not play at all if he's in any way fatigued? Sure, you screw over that kid in Utah who paid $$$ to see him sit on the bench and wave a towel the whole game but your job is to win rings, not please fans.

@Warma-Sheen said in 2016-2017 Basketball Thread:

@Arkandel said in 2016-2017 Basketball Thread:

Anthony Davis needs to go to a real team. His prime is going to get completely wasted on that piece of shit roster he's stuck with.

This is just the way of the world these days... Why should all the best players be on just three or four teams?

No reason, but I didn't say anything about a top team, I said a real team.

To define it better though, a 'real' team should:

• Have a good front office with vision, opting to not go with 'win now' (hello, Brooklyn Nets of a few seasons ago) burdening their roster with terrible long-term contract gambles that will cripple them for years when/if they don't work out but also avoid the constant lotteries by opting to 'win never' (hello Sixers of... well, hello Sixers). Example here: Jerry West, since you mentioned the GSW; the guy knows his shit.

• Have a good coach and let him do his thing. For instance look at Miami; Spo was hand-picked, came from within the organization and developed himself to be one of the best. As a result the Heat play consistently great ball despite massive roster changes. Or the Wolves - Thibs was a great pick, adding a defensively minded guy to work on a young, long roster.

• Overall potential. AD and his ilk are rare; we don't get players like that often, they're a couple per generation. I don't want them struggling to make the playoffs surrounded by a roster unfit for them, I want them competing for rings. It's true sometimes this can't be helped, not everyone can win and bad luck happens to the best engineered teams but I can still hope these guys get their chance to show us what they are made of.

It's not about forming superteams. But I also want to point out your peeve goes against the NBA's nature. Its entire system is built in a way that the playoffs matter almost exclusively, and the regular season not so much no matter how stacked a few teams are compared to the rest.

@ThatGuyThere said in Is there a basics of CG out there somewhere?:

@Arkandel
I know I wouldn't want to cgen on the web.

Sure, and I'm asking - why?

@ixokai said in Is there a basics of CG out there somewhere?:

I... don't play on games where everything is on the wiki.

I think one of the problems here then is that you base your resolutions exclsively on your preferences. Wikis are very widely used these days, for example, and you already rejected open CGen games because you don't play those either.

Not to say there's something wrong with the practice, but excluding any scenario that either doesn't fit with or is comparable to your solution doesn't lead to robust approaches.

@ixokai said in Is there a basics of CG out there somewhere?:

Me, I like wikis, I like the web, but IME there is a significant subset of our player population who do not want to so much as touch anything outside of the game.

Almost everyone already has to do with the wiki as it is. It's where policies are, where your character profile is, etc.

But we can argue about it if you have theories as to why people might be adverse to using a GUI for CGen.

@Misadventure Industry secret: It's not so much (most) management cares whether we're happy or not. It's that a) satisfied employees work harder and b) praise is cheap.

So basically the HR department in many companies substitutes $100 bonus cheques with $2 YOU ARE AWESOME plaques, the managers split $40 and everyone's happy. Everything is awesome!

@Cupcake My entire company is built on the concept of employee engagement and recognition. There's an industry (albeit not a huge one) which revolves around the completely non-childish concern of yours.

Being valued and being paid aren't mutually inclusive.