Best posts made by BetterJudgment

@Jeshin

So basically a lot of MUSHes are running their own "codebase" in a sense.

(Probably you could just read what @Rook wrote several times to greater benefit, but here's my bit anyway.)

No, not really. I think part of why some people are becoming frustrated with what you are saying is because it is hard to communicate past your misconceptions.

TinyMUD derivatives like MUSH and MUX (and I think MUCK and MOO as well, although I don't really know how much game-specific content the various MOO Cores) are both content-free and content agnostic when you start them up. Their codebase is nothing more than the collection of mechanisms that enable them to start up, have characters, and have rooms, and allow connections. So, saying that "a lot of MUSHes are running their own 'codebase' in a sense" is really just a misapprehension of what's happening.

Likewise, MUSH is not a genre. A game's genre is concerned with elements like setting, whether conflict is primarily PvP or PvE, and so on. MUSH (from my non=coder's perspective) is more like machine code than it is like an operating system or even an application. Looking at it another way, mystery stories are a genre. Those stories can be created as films, television programs, books, and plays. To think, however, that books are intrinsically mystery-telling devices and to ask a fantasy author, "What kind of mysteries do you write?" just produces confusion and in the end doesn't really tell you much about stories, writing or books.

I dunno. One the one hand, I think that HR is a loudmouthed, self-justifying shitpile. On the other hand, the worst I've seen from him--and he recently here made me as angry as I've been at anybody online since 1996--seemed at some level to be his attempt to trounce some sort of intelligence and life back into a place that has become irretrievably stale. Just like gaming has gotten a lot less fun as people have become increasingly wrapped up in themselves and less able or interested in entertaining others, this forum has gotten a lot less fun and a lot less interesting. Turning what has been several days between checking it to not checking it at all will make no difference in my life.

This is from a cookbook called The Vegetarian Epicure. I'm not vegetarian, but I've taken this to every potluck for which I was supposed to provide a side dish and rarely have taken any back home. It's a great side dish for a roast.

Mushrooms Berkeley

1 lb. fresh mushrooms
2 medium bell peppers
1 red onion
1/2 cup butter

Sauce:
2 Tbs. Dijon mustard
2 Tbs. Worcestershire sauce
1/2 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup "mellow red table wine" (I don't know anything about wine, so I just get something cheaper than $12.00 that doesn't have a screw top)
fresh-ground black pepper
salt

Prepare the sauce: mix together the mustard, brown sugar, and Worcestershire until it's a smooth paste. Add the wine, lots of pepper, and a little bit of salt, and stir well.

Wash the mushrooms quickly and halve them. Wash and seed the bell peppers and cut them into rough 1" squares. Peel and chop the onion. Melt the butter (or half olive oil, half butter) in a large sauté pan or saucepan. Saute the onion until it is transparent, and then add the mushrooms and peppers. Cook them, stirring frequently, until the mushrooms brown and start to shrink, then stir in the sauce. Turn the flame to medium and simmer for at least 45 minutes, until the sauce is much reduced and thickened and everything has turned dark.

@HelloRaptor said:

What in god's name is all the semi-random ansi? O.O

That was my reaction. Are those supposed to be highlighted keywords? If you read the red ones, you get: set in with desc and desc to get of like on.... I don't think this can be doing what you want it to do.

Sure it's art, in the same way that Henry Darger's 15,000 pages of obsessive stories about and collages of little girls with penises is art.

@Sunny said:

So, the whole blow-up with my sibling and his wife was over my mom's wedding ring. They wanted it -- apparently took it off of her just after she passed -- and my dad said 'no, give it back', and explosion. The reasoning behind my being an awful person is that I apparently did not make my dad give it to them nao.

Christ. I would have been an awful person for calling them a pack of vultures.

I find that Atlantis is still the most reliable even if it has recently for me run afoul of a specific MU*'s wonky code. I hasn't been updated in a very long time, however, and most Mac clients seem to end up being abandonware.

Oh, and if anyone tells you to use Savitar, beat them over the head with a rake until they stop moving. The interface is bizarre, and I never got it to do anything but crash.

@purldator said:

@Rince

I had an extensive post written out for the issues list. I'm glad I held off on posting it.

You are correct that what I plan to do isn't the exact same as what you plan to do. Mine has to do with MU* as well or I wouldn't have mentioned it. Since the original idea is collaboration I wanted share my thoughts on the idea of such an undertaking as you and others have done before you in this topic and see if I could add something or have a firm link to whatever site you wish to create.

The obvious disdain you have in reply to my post for whatever reason was heard loud and clear too. However, in the end it only validates my reasons to do what I want to do and build what I want to build to help the MU* community and the general writing/RP community. SSDD.

Thanks for the encouragement. And the same to you as well.

And now we see (part of) why attempts to create MU* resources often flounder.

Honestly, it sounds like what everyone is talking about already is done by The Mudconnector. While that site is sloppy and frequently out of date because it never prunes old games, it still contains game listing that can be searched by a number of criteria and forums on a number of topics, including forums for both beginning and advanced administrators and coders.

It's also not a community-based project, but which is worse: a site whose problems come from a single administrator holding all the keys, or a site where five or six administrators likely will end up engaging in the same sort of power struggles that everyone has witnessed on a number of games? What do you do when vaspider volunteers to "curate" an area?

I suspect that the problem is not so much that new and better wheels need to be created, but instead that people--i.e., those who don't currently play on MU*s--don't want to ride in the car.

@Silver said:

@Glitch I wonder if that would work if I flew out of Mexico, since I live much closer to that border than to the Canadian one.

Then again who the hell wants to go to Mexico, even for a little while? Even Mexicans don't want to be in Mexico.

"Baby, let's to Mexico!" says Sir Douglas.

Even when you're trying to do Mac vs. PC wars ironically, you still end up looking really stupid.

And I should know because I have no sense of humor.

I know I've used this example before, but the one time I've seen an aspect of rape RP truly "forced" on others was on Akashat. The victim in an publicly announced plot made her dramatic entrance and collapse in the main public room of the city grid. Everyone (including me) posed rushing over. She then as part of her next pose described both the external and internal mutilation of her character's genitalia as a result of the rape. I couldn't do anything for a few seconds; then, all I could manage was to say, "ooc I'm sorry, I have to leave" and exit the room.

@Misadventure, if you want examples of "what not to fucking do" for your behavior expectations, I'll offer that.

I've been lifting weights 4x a week for six weeks now. Before you get impressed (if you were going to), that's basically just two full-body workouts split between two days because I'm so short on time that I can only spend 30 minutes each time. I'm also dieting some, although that is mainly just adjustment since I'm so strict on my diet anyway.

The good thing is that I've definitely gained strength, which I desperately needed to do; I'm over 50 and have never exercised consistently like this before. (I invested in a set of Olympic weights, bars, and a bench, and it's far different than using the Nautilus machines at the gym.) The frustrating thing is that even though I've made these changes and continue to walk briskly the mile to work in the morning and the mile back, I'm not making headway on the 20 lbs. I need to lose.

I guess I'm going to have to bite the bullet, get up 45 minutes earlier each morning (which means 5:15 AM some mornings), and go speedwalking. I'm not running because I don't think my knees will take it. Too bad doing this stuff is so freaking boring, but if I can get rid of my gut it will be worth it.

I don't think Elendor is playable without local culture admins, and it didn't look like there were any left when I last looked. A better solution would probably be Elessar MUSH, which is still active (I just checked).

Edited to add: Eh. I just looked at some of their logs and saw one of the most unthematically played Elves I've ever seen. Maybe not.

By my memory, several bottles should have been finished by now.

@Thenomain said:

That is not "not antagonistic". That is, I think, pretty clearly antagonistic. It just is how it is.

Honestly, I haven't felt that it's that way on an institutional level, although I certainly have run across antagonistic individuals. That may be because, when I came in, some old-timers were adamant about keeping sectarian religion out of the rooms. People are more lax now, so that you can hear all sorts of New Age happy-thought and Evangelical cant without anyone batting an eye or, more likely, giving you the stink-eye and rasping out, "What the hell does that horseshit have to do with not taking a drink today?"

Also, congratulations,

Thanks, but it's not that important. It mainly just means I've stayed alive to fuck up all sorts of other things without being able to blame being wasted.

@FirePuff said:

I think that's why some games highly restrict apping anything higher than 'entry level'. Promotions are earned by those who have an interest in the game, longevity in their roles, room for learning code, and less 'Captain Kirks' about.

Every time someone asks to app higher on the Trek game I'm on (entry level starting required), it's always a request for command, and they always expect existing characters to magically want to crew under them.

Bullshit. That statement says more about your own limitations than about anyone else's motives.

I recently explored apping a NCO (that is to say, someone ineligible for command) in his late-30s/early 40s on a game like this. It was not because I wanted the character to be in a command position but because I like playing characters who are dealing with the changed expectations and career goals that come with age and for whom issues of rank and experience can help define their actions and personality. I couldn't get anyone on the game to understand what I meant, however; they seemed to think that the only reason someone would want to play an older character was to have a higher rank and a better sheet. At least they were up front about it, which I figure saved us all some frustration.

@WTFE said in But Wait, There's More!:

@Admiral said in But Wait, There's More!:

Darn, and here I was wanting the responsibility and power of the board so I could...

...well shit. How does one abuse their power on a small, niche internet bbs again?

Ask Rasheem.

Who?

[political] If santorum is the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex, then a cruz is the stiff, crusty hand towel you use to wipe it off. [/political]

@Sunny said:

I would almost say it's a difference between roleplay-intensive and roleplay-exclusive, almost. Like, intensive implies that there are still other things to do besides roleplay, there. That it's not absolute...which is accurate. Mushes do not fall under the category of RPI games. They aren't. They're RPE. If you aren't roleplaying, you are not doing anything that means playing at all.

However, MU*s give you the opportunity to interact with people OOC (for good or for ill) and even to design and run plots. The RPI MUDs I've known remove all OOC communication in the game and even police official forums to prevent people from revealing who their characters are and what they are doing. The claim is that this makes the roll playing more immersive. The reality is that the ban on OOC communication combined with game staff's insistence on keeping all coded elements secret from the players (including XP earned, skill levels, etc.) simply produces constant problems with cheating that is organized outside the game. When I played on SoI, it was IRC "cheating rings"; I'd guess that now it's Skype. The result is that people who want to play by the rules often end up with the short end of the stick.

@Cobaltasaurus said:

So my college has apparently setup a "public drive" that you can access from any computer on campus, to turn in computer or get special material from your instructor. Neat? Convenient? They insist on calling it DropBox, which is all over the syllabus for any teacher using it. "Assignment list is also in dropbox".

No.

DropBox is an online service that you can access from any computer with the internet. Not one I have to go to the library with a thumbdrive to either give or take crap from.

I can guarantee that if you point out that this is confusing, people will just stare at you uncomprehendingly. Those who lack imagination, experience, and (sometimes) smarts as well frequently don't understand when something is confusing because they pretty much just run on automatic.

I've had this problem with files on games as well. If a nonsensical or ambiguous thing has been that way for ages and everybody has learned to deal with it, when someone comes in and says "Wha?" the problem must be with that person, not with the badly or confusingly named or implemented thing.