Posts made by Arkandel

Taken from https://www.statslife.org.uk/news/4026-statistics-of-the-year-2018-winners-announced .

$1.3 billion: the amount lost from the value of Snapchat within a day after Kylie Jenner tweeted: "Sooo does anyone else not open Snapchat anymore?"

85.9%: the proportion of British trains that ran on time -- the lowest for more than a decade

40%: the percentage of Russian men who do not live to the age of 65

64,946: the number of measles cases in Europe from November 2017 to October 2018

82%: the percentage of all British retail shopping that is still in-store rather than online

16.7%: the percentage reduction of the number of Jaffa Cakes in the McVities' Christmas tube

6.4%: the percentage of female executive directors within FTSE 250 companies

https://www.vox.com/health-care/2018/12/18/18134825/emergency-room-bills-health-care-costs-america

So, this thread isn't about providing identifying information of any kind (don't do that!).

We're all hanging out here anyway, some of us for years, so I figured we might want to share some casual details about what makes us... us, in real life. Weird little things, stuff we like to do, eat, visit, watch or read.

No humble-bragging, either!

So I'll give it a start, see if this thing catches on.

• My favorite pizzafood involves pineapple, pepperoni and BBQ sauce. Judge me all you want, fools.

• I don't like hot showers. Or, rather, my threshold for 'hot water' has been historically much cooler than most people's I know.

• Perhaps on that note! My sense of smell doesn't work - or, rather, it's woeful. When I enter places like bakeries I can sometimes smell something for a few seconds, then it goes away, else... nothing. I'm paranoid over this and overcompensate with extra showers just in case.

• My car has a manual transmission. That's a European thing I carried all the way to the New World but I prefer it now even though obviously standard is easier.

• E-reader > physical books. Fite me. My shelves have been full all my life, and now I can carry my entire to-read list with me anywhere I go.

• My parents didn't like animals when I was growing up (although they changed their minds later on) but I always wanted pets... so I went overboard as an adult, and now I share the house with five critters.

• I don't need variety in my diet. If I like a specific meal I can have the same thing for weeks at a time - and I have. Usually I order the same one thing from each restaurant I go to, once I find one I like enough.

• I have no tattoos. I'm not cool enough.

You go. Who are you?

I like this site.

https://flickmetrix.com/

Pretty neat for movie score aggregation based on factors like Netflix availability, year, genre, etc.

I was reading the Wheel of Time books at the time and my roommate noticed. He told he there was a MUD about the setting, which I had assumed was similar to Medievia IV - mobs, levels, etc.

Then I got on there and Ororo Sedai (white haired, she controlled the weather - it was a simpler time...) asked me to go become a Warder. I was like... sure, those are badass! But I had to find a guy who recruited them? Whaaat?

And so it began.

@coin Impulse

@aria Who won?

@coin One of the things I like about Superman is how, perhaps just on the merit of being such an archetype, there have been a lot of pretty creative derivatives and deviations based on his story over the years.

This feathered doggo here.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/2018-in-review/my-not-top-ten-television-list-2018-edition

I know it's just one person's opinionated list, but hey.

Speaking for myself I have a rotating circle of friends, some of whom still play, many of whom are semi- or probably permanently retired. I've occasionally been tagged by some of those to get back in the game but usually it's when I have the itch.

I've noticed over time the cause and effect circle @Wizz mentioned - reading geeky fantasy books which led to playing similar things out on a MUSH - had even been reversed; I'd read new novels while playing the possibility of turning it into a game at the back of my head. What would The Stormlight Archive or the Lightbringer setting look like, would it be playable? Could it lead to interesting gameplay if the plot was detached from the book characters?

The reality of it sometimes disappointed me. Perhaps it's because of what I do here and the stories I hear both publicly or - even more frequently - in private, but I've found the less I need to care about the OOC side of MU*ing the more engaged I allow myself to become, and the happier I am on a day to day basis with it.

But what draws me the most is moments when things click.

• That feeling days after I start a new character when the other shoe drops and the PC does things on his own I didn't know he would when I started typing his next pose; it's magic I haven't found anywhere else.

• The time when I meet another PC whose player I don't even know and we harmonize over theme; it just flows, one pose into the other, tossing things over only to see them caught and returned, enriched in each bout.

• The notion that a character is a living entity in a way who can outgrow my initial plans, changing from what he experiences which are in themselves things no one planned for them; not staff, not other players, no one. They just happened, and he's now a different beast than before.

I haven't ran into the opportunity to get those feelings from other types of gaming, and although I wouldn't know, it's probably not quite the same for creative "solo" writing either. But if I do get the itch to get back it's because I'm missing them.

@mietze said in What drew you to MU*?:

What keeps me in: still the people.

Let's test this. Let's say all of General Your's friends retired tonight; there are still MUSHes around but they're all ran and played by strangers.

Do you start over? Go and make new friends? Or would it be likely you'd float away from the hobby?

What I'm trying to somehow determine - which is a fool's errand of course - is how much of MU*ing is a habit we've built, a social engagement we're in for the community, or if it's the unique combination of factors many have already pointed out (the persistent world, opportunity to write in collaboration with others, etc) that's primarily responsible for keeping us going.

It's almost certainly all of those but would it be a few considerably more than others?

Also... coincidence. So many of our stories that I've read over the years boiled down to that one guy who showed us that one MU* back in the day, and we got stuck... but who knows what would have happened if that guy had been sick that day and we hadn't had that conversation.

@derp said in Random links:

Egypt investigating picture of couple having sex on Grreat Pyramid.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Obviously NSFW-ish but overall pretty mild.

They are assholes. I hate those kinds of tourists.

A few years ago a Brit tourist in Knossos - a freakin' 3000 year old palace - went across the ropes when no one was looking and took a dump on the Minoan throne.

Like come on. It's really hard to advocate life-ruining sentences for idiots like this since no one got hurt... technically... but fuck.

As the title says I'm looking to see if we can get a better insight on what makes someone a roleplayer, and perhaps a MUSHer. It's not so much anecdotes about how we started in this hobby that I'm curious about (although feel free, by all means) but rather what about us other than the mere circumstance of someone in our lives going "hey, there's this kinda game you might like..." conspired to turn us into the hobby.

For example many people are gamers, but they don't play MUSHes. Many enjoy books and games, but... same thing. I'd bet there are lots of folks who like books, games and like to write but they aren't interested in roleplaying per se. Lots of friends I know who enjoy table-top games have been completely uninterested in MUSHes even though they already knew a lot about RPG systems, mechanics, etc.

So why are we here and others are not? What's the recipe that creates a MUSHer? What are the - shall we say rare? - ingredients that got us into this messbeautiful hobby?

@packrat RUN YOU FOOL

Bye.

@roz On the other hand it's also fun to talk about design. I quite like discussing that kind of thing even when it's not meant to become a game when it grows up, or even if the genre/theme itself doesn't even interest me.

So... what if this Arx thread's pitches aren't actively watched over by Arx stuff? If you wanna brainstorm, storm your brain out. Hell, you might inspire someone to do something cool.

@wizz MSB is what y'all make of it. There are pros and cons, since having an environment where you can speak your mind without worry of censorship can backfire or it can be a way to get honest feedback.

The reason I agreed it wasn't the right thread for staff to get constructive technical feedback is because we're not built for it. A bboard in-game would be even worse, for example. The medium doesn't match, it's as simple as that - in fact not for any kind of extensive brainstorming where separate subthreads need to be tracked down, including building up a new game's theme for example.

But please don't underestimate the value of being able to speak freely. I don't mean it for Arx but in general. While shitposts and unprovoked personal attacks are a sad consequence of it, there's a big upside of both being able to say what you want without looking over your shoulder and reading what people outside of your personal circle think of your grand plans.

Who else is watching The Titans? Man, that series is good! It's got its flaws, but I love the way they're basically exploring the DC universe using Dick Grayson as a constant plot device to draw in characters from all corners of the setting.

I mean they just had a full episode of Hawk and Dove. And they drop F-bombs all the time.

Now if they could just somehow get the rights to actually use Batman even as a small cameo now and then...or Bruce, at least. It barely even strains the budget, dammit, he doesn't need special effects to show up and be all grumpy.

@kanye-qwest Well... I care.