Posts made by Arkandel

@HelloRaptor said:

• I have not lost myself in Hello Kitty Online.

Well, then get your ass back on Diablo 3 you filthy casual. Those demons aren't going to grind themselves, you know.

When I said I really wanted to MU* properly on a phone this is not what I meant, dammit.

@Cobaltasaurus I feel there is a story there. What happened?

Just Survive Somehow was the best The Walking Dead episode I remember seeing in forever. Carol is badass. That whole episode kept going from strength to strength.

I dislike crossfit. Mainly because often form is sacrificed in the name of ego - a very bad tradeoff.

@Coin said:

I disagree with @Arkandel or our dearly desk-flipping, indignantly-quitting @HelloRaptor all the time.

To be fair, it wouldn't happen as often if you weren't wrong all the time.

But yes, if anyone is thin skinned enough around here to worry about people disagreeing with them... boy are they in the wrong place.

The new Mistborn novel is out! Brandon Sanderson's Shadows of Self came out today.

Also - has anyone read The Dinosaur Lords to give a brief review? I'm curious - I mean the premise is massive armies of dinosaur-riding knights clashing in an alternative medieval-era setting, so how can that possibly go wrong?

@Sundown said:

Dunno if this is the right thread, but

I'm struggling to come up with topics out of place in a thread called "random links" as long as they contain a link.

@Coin said:

It's always been a quick recipe to "I don't play with you anymore", for me.

You know where I stand on this - at a whiff of stupid I'm outta there. But it's not the case for everyone, and the social pressure exerted by someone determined enough to get their way can be significant. Especially when it's not convenient to avoid someone; what if you move in common circles, especially in smaller spheres/games?

No, what it really is is a dick that needs to be pimp-smacked in the kisser.

History shows this does happen but much later, and after the fact. Remember, Juerg (the posterboy for this) was pretty well respected at his time, until people came out to talk about what he did later on. At that point you've already lost players.

Amazon is having a Digital games sale for Blizzard titles. Diablo 3 and Reaper of Souls are being sold for 20 US$ each.

Being in line at a Subway restaurant (eat fresh!) waiting to place my order. Two people ahead, no biggie. One of them places an order for eight sandwiches.

Argggghh.

@calm said:

I heard that if you go into the bathroom of the airport in Gary, Indiana, turn off the lights, and spin around three times, Derek Rose's ankle suffers multiple fractures.

It's not his knee this time, thankfully.

But yeah, that man defines injury prone.

While I agree on the issue with PvP with @Coin, physical and social confrontations aren't inherently that different and normally I'd have no issue with using mechanics to resolve them if not for two issues.

1. It's much easier for staff to recognize when physical mechanics are being abused (PKs cause a lot of noise).

2. It's much more likely for people to report physical than social confrontations.

There's a kind of players who revel in abusing this by making it sound like their idea of where things ought to go is the right one, and if you don't go along you're a bad player. What do you mean you don't want to sleep with my character? Look, the dice say you do, what are you, some kinda cheater? They will happily hide behind mechanics and concepts ("well, I am playing a sexually obsessive PC and look, dice rolls!") whether the other player cares to go that way or not.

That doesn't mean all games ought to be consensual - but once player-to-player collaboration flies out the window because someone's view on where things should go is pushed as an agenda, it's historically been far more likely that social abilities have been abused than physical ones.

How about a non-superhero superhero MUSH? Maybe something like Gotham - the TV series - where PCs are cops, criminals, etc in the early rise of the freaks. You, too, can be some C-lister villain's henchman!

@FiranSurvivor said:

Malazan Book of the Fallen.

I need to read that damn series. If only I can get through book 1.

The truth is still out there.

When it comes to player conflict no system can work as well as true collaboration; that is, actual people talking to each other to figure out what might constitute an acceptable resolution and what would not.

The point where systems usually fail if that caveat isn't properly observed is that they're abused. Sometimes the way is direct and obvious (my character doesn't like yours so he punches you into oblivion or death) which has certain consequences. Sometimes the way is subtle and devious (my character wants to sleep with yours so he rolls his way into your pants) which is a different beast altogether.

Neither option is desirable if someone is being a jerk, and neither is better than the other. When mechanics are leveraged in order for one player to force the other into unwanted venues the only variable is how creepy things are allowed to get before something gives.

@Derp said:

I've actually met with very little resistance anywhere but this forum, truth be told, outside of a select few situations, but we all face those from time to time.

It's interesting you phrase it like that - 'met with very little resistance'.

@lordbelh said:

When you offer up a bad solution, it is constructive to the greater conversation to point out that it is, in fact, a bad solution. Contrary to some people's beliefs, any solution is not always better than no solution.

Amen to that. "We've got to do something so anything will do" is just about always the wrong approach. You can absolutely make things worse with a bad solution than the original problem was.

@Jaunt said:

That's useful, thanks! So what I'm hearing from you is that the official moderator stance is that you prefer people to not post regular updates (say, weekly updates including new articles and contests or whatnot), but rather just advertise with the first post and then discuss from there. Is that correct?

I don't much care about the contents of this thread either way but that sounds ... hopefully and probably inadvertently like rules lawyers the world over. "Can you state exactly what the rule is so I can figure out a way that doesn't violate its exact letter and quote you later on to prove it?".

Man, be upfront about us. We're not lawyers (well, some are, but their unspeakable evil is better left unmentioned). Just post without an obvious agenda or something.