Posts made by Auspice

@moth said in Good TV:

@aerianyx I also think Cee Lo. Or T-Pain, for that brief autotune clue.

Oooo, yeah, I forgot! I briefly began thinking T-Pain, too!

@fortydeuce said in Constructing a FAQ (and what ground to cover):

Never tried that, @Bobotron. I just know Duck installs on a Chromebook as a discrete app, so you have a window that feels like a full program, even though it isn't -- I'd find it weird to MUSH from even a standalone browser window with a tab and what have you, but Duck doesn't have that feeling.

Duck does install on Chrome itself, FYI. I've done this to help people troubleshoot Duck on various MU*s.

So you can use Duck on whatever OS you want.

@thenomain said in General Video Game Thread:

@theonceler

I loved playing the end credits.

If Donut Country ever hits $5, folks, either buy it or beg a friend to gift it to you. Then just settle in under a blanket and enjoy.

That is the price point I've been watching for.

@krmbm said in Ruins of Pern - Discussion:

#gayhormone

<shudders>

But that's exactly my feeling. Yes, it was nice there were gay characters and I will leave it at that.

@meg said in Ruins of Pern - Discussion:

@auspice oh, i thought she was more referring to the crazy things that Anne herself has said. Not Todd. (tho lol todd). Like Anne saying that greenriders /turn gay/, etc.

Hence the 'if you don't use Death of the Author concept'.

Oh, yeah, that too.
I still run into people who try to say Anne was open-minded because she had gay characters and it's like weeeeeeeeeell..........

@meg said in Ruins of Pern - Discussion:

@cupcake said in Ruins of Pern:

TELGAR! TELGAR!

Sorry, had to.

As for skeeve, yeah well, there's plenty of that to go around for the Pern setting, especially if you have no plans to apply Death of the Author. The literary trope, not the fact that Anne has actually passed. We all know what I'm talking about, right? Do I have to even say it?

you don't have to say it.

Look, Todd tried.

He just, uh.

Should have taken up a different career.
I personally pretend his books don't exist.

Speaking as a former admin, the unfortunate thing is that one of the relatively recent updates to nodebb is that it no longer alerts the admins when a report has been filed. They have to remember to manually check them. It used to send up an alert for all admins that hey! there's something you need to look at!

So it can become easy to get lazy and not check them. It might be best to DM Gany and Ark both for things you especially need their attention about.

I love spaghetti squash prepared certain ways.

But it is not actually a 100% 1-to-1 substitute for pasta. There's still some pasta-ish things you can do with it: butter & garlic, meat and tomato-based sauces, but you gotta adapt shit.

I love having a full pantry and 'fridge.

I spent the first few years I lived on my own struggling financially and sometimes buying things my kitty could also eat (like tuna) when money would be super tight. Then I was married to an addict and would often go without food as I made sure bills were paid and the animals were fed.

So having both bills paid and a kitchen regularly full of food to where I could have guests over and feed them is just... a nice feeling. Sure, I never really have money spare for 'fun' stuff or eating out (I can do that mebbe twice a month and only v. cheaply) and I don't have a savings, but I have enough food. I'm never worried about being able to eat and that's a great feeling.

@zombiegenesis

Will be on soon to (hopefully) grab the char I messaged you about!

Before OOC Rooms happened, there was this (blessedly brief) gap in which games (at least the ones I was on) did away with the 'Public' channel or forced it to be 'for important announcements only.'

And suddenly, you had no means of interacting with people. There was no method for 'casual chatter' at all. Sure you had your 'area' or 'sphere' channel, but that was it. It became this Thing to force people to BE on Public, but also to Disallow people from 'chatting' on it beyond to just ask for RP or to announce RP. But OOC Rooms weren't a thing yet, nor were other 'chat' channels (like Sports or similar).

I took my first long break from RP around that time because I felt really isolated. I didn't know anyone save just a few people. And I've never been good, at all, at just wandering into scenes. I get really, really anxious at just wandering in. It freaks me out. Even now, with scene systems (like @faraday 's), I still page ahead and ask people and that takes a lot of psyching myself up. I very, very much prefer when I can feel comfortable and start proposing and tossing around ideas and start doing the 'Hey, I wanna RP, I'm gonna go here and do this and who wants to join me?

I can probably count on one hand the number of times I have sat in a room, even with a 'Looking for RP' flag turned on, and had someone show up to RP with me.

I'm waiting for a good sale price to get Donut Country. I want it! But I just don't have the $20 for it just now.

OK. So I gotta share my theory for the Monster on the Masked Singer.

I think it's Rick Astley. I know I'm probably crazy but it sounds kinda like him, some of the clues fit, and they keep coming back to the monster costume and does anyone else remember when he showed up on the Foster's float at the 2008 Macy's parade?

This has been floating (ha) in my head for a few days now. >.>

Personally, I RP less on games without an OOC Room. I feel isolated and I find it hard to integrate and get to know people. I am very much not a 'wander around until I bump into someone!' type of person. I get lost on grids super easily.

Part of why I never got into Firan and why it took me ages to get into WoD is that both felt hostile. Firan had this massive grid and no OOC rooms. I never felt like I could fit in. It was sterile, in a sense. I felt isolated and alone and like I knew absolutely no one. I made one single friend over the course of the entire time I played there. Channels mostly involved being yelled at for daring to discuss anything that involved anything remotely IC at all, even asking about where to RP. Wandering involved getting lost or running into idle people. It was uncomfortable to the extreme. WoD games, when I very first tried them, had OOC rooms full of people who just wanted to brag about their states, idling people, or people over-sharing their RL. I couldn't 'integrate' into it at all.

When I've found games that have open-and-friendly channels (often smaller games) or OOC Rooms, I'm able to settle in, get to know people, get comfortable, and then feel more comfortable and free to ask for RP, volunteer ideas for scenes, learn about peoples' characters and offer up hooks for how we might know each other! how we might GET to know each other!

Nowadays on WoD games, I use sphere channels and all for that (the OOC Lounge is still a dangerous place ), but tbh, I need the OOC Lounge myself.

Very, very much what @faraday is saying. And even just not that.

As someone who loves to run plots (/PRPs), I've found the issue is often just finding willing participants.

I see a lot of complaining (sometimes even on the games I run on) of 'no one wants to run plot,' but the true complaint is often 'No one who holds the reins for metaplot wants to run plot where I get to decide the specific outcome.'

I've had situations where Staff will hand me a specific snippet of metaplot (Faraday herself did this on BSU a couple times! And thankfully there was a great playerbase there, but it happened on other games, too, with less-than-stellar players) and a goal for a scene. Situations like: go to this location, have this happen, and let the players discover that thing.

I'd be lucky to have two people show up. And Staff would be handing similar scenes out to two, three other willing STs to lighten their OWN scene-running load because if THEY ran a scene? They'd be overwhelmed by how many people would appear. Us STs would be lucky to have anyone show up (1, 2, 3 players) while a Staff-run would have 10+ players. Staff would even advertise that hey, these are the approved STs with metaplot scenes going on.

But still, crickets. And players complaining on channel of lack of plot, lack of anything to do, how the game was 'dead' despite multiple ST-run scenes per week.

Sometimes the issue is the playerbase being picky.

I've talked about this with a few people over time. I think @faraday has provided some stellar tools with Ares. The scene system and FS3 make things easy so that just about anyone can pick up and 'run.' If you have ideas, if you want to run, you can. You don't need to know a complicated TT rules system. You don't need to learn a lot of code. I've personally run combat scenes for 12 players and done it in just a few hours. The open sheet system lets you custom tailor things so that you can make sure to involve everybody and work in challenges and experiences so that everyone gets something to do. I appreciate her regularly for that.

The tools are there.

That leaves it to STs to design the stories, the puzzles, etc., to present to the players.

The final step is the hardest. It's on all of us as players to participate. To stop just sitting around and waiting for the 'next best thing.' No, Bob-the-ST isn't staff, but what's to say his event isn't one handed to him by Staff? Or that Staff isn't planning to weave it into the metaplot? Or why should we risk discouraging him to begin with? He might be an awesomely fun ST! I've played with people who are just downright fun to play with. Who run shit so enjoyable that I don't even care if it's part of the metaplot or not, it's just fun.

@ortallus said in General Video Game Thread:

@auspice I've been playing this so I can write a review for work, and despite myself I'm rather enjoying it. I never played the original Ragnarok, so I'm finding it a little overwhelming, but I'm getting there.

I never played the original, either, but I feel the same! It definitely has a learning curve, but there's certainly some things given over to it that make it pretty great for a mobile game.

I love that I can select a square on the world map and it will just auto-travel me through each intervening square until I arrive.
I love that I can select a mob type in the auto-attack menu and it'll do its thing. I despaired when I saw the '0/300 Rocker' type quests until I discovered that. I hate fetch quests in most MMOs and holy shit they'd be horrid in a mobile MMO, but that allowance makes it so much better!

And the 'Assistant' you unlock around level 20 makes dailies a lot easier, too. Select your daily of choice and it'll take you on your way to what you need.

@rnmissionrun said in Ruins of Pern:

@auspice said in Ruins of Pern:

@rnmissionrun said in Ruins of Pern:

@auspice said in Ruins of Pern:

(Screw you white dragon.)

OMG!

the White Dragon was the best book of the series!

I'M SORRY DID YOU READ MASTERHARPER OF PERN?!

Yes. My opinion stands

Your opinion is wrong.

@rnmissionrun said in Ruins of Pern:

@auspice said in Ruins of Pern:

(Screw you white dragon.)

OMG!

the White Dragon was the best book of the series!

I'M SORRY DID YOU READ MASTERHARPER OF PERN?!

@templari said in Ruins of Pern:

@auspice You did not like Ruth?

I really didn't. Ruth was just unnecessary.

I, personally, like the idea of a game where if something gets ignored or unfinished, it becomes worse. However, in that vein, there's a few things to consider:

1. Is there an upper cap on how much worse it gets?
   a) You can't launch a world-ending scenario when your PCs are still level 1 and expect them to stymie it.
   b) What do you do if it turns out that the 'big bad' you released just isn't engaging for the playerbase?

2. How do you gauge to find things players want to engage in?
   a) Same as above, what happens if it turns out no one is interested?

3. How do you handle PrPs?
   a) How do you handle abandoned PrPs? So often people launch a plot, get one or two scenes in, and then wander away. Or their players wander away. What might you have in place to help players (or STs!) keep their plots moving?

4. How would you make that impact meaningful? I think this can mean a few things:
   a) Impact on self: It's not always about XP gain. Maybe they earn way into a secret society. Acclaim by surrounding people. Even just emits in certain parts of the grid that represents recognition by the general populace could be cool.
   b) Impact on world: The loss of a beloved hangout spot could have a major impact should people just ignore risk to an area. What, your favorite coffee shop is gone? Well, y'all decided to ignore THE MOLE when he was destroying that block. Too bad, so sad. Or maybe instead of just +request aWeSoMe SeCrEt HiDeOuT, a good plot to earn it that liaises with the right PC and NPC groups.

But it all ties back into points 1 & 2: what do you do when people lose interest or fall off (/idle out)?