Posts made by bored

@surreality I'm not sure I follow the why? Or which of my posts you're answering, anyway. Were they just too attractive, or? I usually go for obscure (moreso because its easier to get 'normal' looks that way), although HorrorMU was kind of an exception because the necessity of playing a bunch of different 'characters' with the same physical person makes actors with large bodies of varied work a near-necessity there (I know you had some obscure model or such).

But well known PBs tend to end up with the weird IC typecasting stuff, intentionally or not. And even for partners, the popular ones (even if they're total crushes) are so common and overused that its not just hard to differentiate them from what they're famous for but from all the other people playing them. When every game has 20ish out of the same typical 50 people on its character roster, its hard to feel like you're even playing somewhere new.

@Ganymede said in TS - Danger zone:

@bored said in TS - Danger zone:

Are you playing dudes in public? Can you put a literate paragraph together?

I play a lot of dudes. And I put together more than a few literate paragraphs.

I've been told that my RP-style is intimidating as hell. I don't know why? I've always thought of my style as being light and somewhat humorous.

Whatever, though. I don't get the crazies either.

@Ganymede Didn't you used to post about how much tail your, uh, whatever dude on that faux-Ireland game got?

Also I'm not saying I exclusively attract crazy, I just think that (as I said somewhere earlier in this thread) the MU community in general trends kinky and enough people are up for and seeking that kind of stuff that I would call it a norm more than an exception. Its only in the last few years that rape RP started being treated as a verboten topic and actively banned, for instance. In Ye Olden WoD thymes, it was rape from wall to wall.

Unrelated double post but how did I miss this:

@Salty said in TS - Danger zone:

@Tempest peak Jolie, yes. Current Jolie, no. Think Closer to 2000. Tomb Raider and Alexander.

Hey, I grew up on Hackers. I feel you.

@Rinel Are you playing dudes in public? Can you put a literate paragraph together?

I am being honest in that it doesn't even seem to matter if I'm trying to be sexy. The last character I RPed was a balding walking ball of anxiety with a very non-Hemsworth/Momoa PB and he was still neck deep in it, so to speak. I hear this from a female friend who plays men (granted, a bit more attractive ones than I tend for), too.

Catching up and treating this like @Arkandel survey thread since apparently that's what it is now and why not.

@Arkandel said in TS - Danger zone:

Does the played-by (either your character's or someone else's) matter to you when it comes to TS at all? Does it influence how you play your PC or which characters they pursue or uh, how?

I like attractive people PBs. But I'm never going to say 'hey look hot PB I will try and RP at this person in hope of the sexing,' because, well... stalking aside it seems obviously dumb. Anyone can slap on a hot PB and will probably disappoint on RP. Typically, a pose will catch my attention first and then maybe I'll look up the wiki to see what the character's deal is a bit, not just PB-wise, but overall.

So while, logically, I feel like it could be a factor (just in the 'judge level of IC physical attraction), it's rarely come up. The awesome people who stand out in RP usually have good PB taste. My long-term RP partners definitely do, as well.

@Arkandel said in TS - Danger zone:

Okay, so while we're still on the topic of IC appearances in general (whether based on a specific PB or otherwise), if you're about to create new character(s) with another player - in other words they're kind of destined to be in a romantic/sexual relationship (*) - do you ask or provide input as to their looks?

With players who have been ongoing partners on multiple games, I've outright let them pick my PBs because I have a tendency toward picking dull or 'normal' looking ones and I want them to enjoy the fantasy too? I'm not that invested in 'my PB as so awesome and also Chris Hemsworth for the 124th time' thing (I think it has to do with pre-dating the PB era?), and unless there's an obvious perfect fit it's usually meh to me.

In terms of my input, I've helped pick among options but I don't think I've ever gone 'hey I'd really like to imagine boning SoAndSo next so could you use her next plz? thnx.' But again my ongoing partners tend to have good taste that jives with mine already.

(*) While we're at it, would you say you usually create characters more or less knowing in advance who their partner's player will be, or do you wing it once they hit the grid purely based on their RP?

I have players I always play with when I play. Its not always romantic, though.

@Arkandel said in TS - Danger zone:

How do you guys find partners for non-vanilla kinds of relationships and especially when it comes to the more racy stuff out there? Anything from the somewhat more common "50 Shades" stuff that's relatively generally accepted to arrangements which are crimes or completely taboo in the real world - the obvious examples that I have in mind is IC rape or to incestuous relationships on games such as The Reach (or Arx) where PCs from the same families were sleeping together.

For starters, dick drought is a real thing and I get plenty of people approaching me for whatever when I play. So fairly often it's 'filter out the crazy/weird' vs having to carefully approach people for my own strangeness. Not a brag, just true, and this goes way back. I remember some shock as not-legal to be WoDing teen self with the kind of stuff that would come up. 'tee hee, my vampire is permanently a virgin so will you violently and painfully deflower her with your giant werewolf dick every night?' - some lady in THE YEAR 2000.

How do these conversations take place? How do you make sure the other person is okay OOC?

This is going to sound bad, but it's very rare that I discuss anything? But that's generally because either I'm playing with people I have a rapport with OR because people are pretty obvious about what they want. IE If your in-game sister is throwing herself at you, it seems kind of obvious incest is on the menu? So these scenarios don't tend to come up a lot for me.

The one time I had to clarify with people more was when I was ICly in the position to demand a lot of sex (char ran a brothel), so I did always check if/what people were interested in, though more in an FTB vs. TS sense but those convos covered some thematic abuse as well. Obviously, if in doubt, you talk?

While we're on the topic, how (and if) do you keep them from getting out of closed door situations and reaching the grid?

ICly, I imagine it would depends on the characters and situation? OOCly, I don't care.

@Sunny I may take a look. I loved the base game and did... I want to say nearly all the class quests, because they were all worth doing. But I got bogged down in a WoW-cloney endgame experience that, well, wasn't as good when I'd already quit playing WoW.

Is the f2p leveling related stuff problematic? I recall there being something about xp gating or whatever when they swapped over. I don't mind paying some money but I also don't really want to do a ton of grinding to get through the storylines.

@Sunny I really wish I could play all of it as a single player game. The quests and everything are (or were!) the kind of thing you expected out of BioWare SW, but I never really enjoyed the MMO parts.

It isn't so much the stats where I find a problem with it. I realize you have some basic options like reloads and I think some explosives and the like. It handles vehicles pretty well because of the original intent (BSG) although I'm not sure about mixed cases. But really none of that's the problem. Mostly I get hung up on the format itself. Everyone targets and exchanges volleys. Repeat. That's basically it.

To be clear, I don't mean this as a criticism, it's just something that contributed to my burnout on the increasing number of FS3 games. Under no uncertain terms, I think if you're not a programmer who can make your own thing from scratch or playing something well-supported on other codebases (mostly WoD), then 100% as a new game creator you should be picking Ares/FS3 right now. It is far and away the best option, and kind of same-y/boring FS3 combat is still superior to 8 hour bullshit.

@Auspice said in General Video Game Thread:

It's also a good option for people who don't want to touch Epic!

Yeah that's the major factor, just that it has some exclusives. I generally prefer things on Steam just for keeping my library, achievements, etc in the same place, but if I can't stand the wait I may as well also pay a lot less money.

@Packrat This is how I ended up feeling about FS3's combat. Its very streamlined and easy to run, but the limited design of it had an effect of homogenizing not just the different sorts of encounters on a single game, but combat scenarios across all FS3 games, regardless of genre. Which turned me off a lot of them.

That said, @Arkandel is right and manually rolled combat is atrocious nearly to the point of making games unplayable. If your system is less common (ie not WoD), it stands a good chance of actually ruining your game (because you get the usual slowness + the slowness of people who don't know the system at all the in the first place). So in most practical scenarios I would bite the bullet and settle for generic automated combat over more flavorful manual in most cases.

Huh, I hadn't even seen the $1 xbox beta thing. Seems like a good time to try it out and there's a couple other good titles on there I don't have on steam (albeit not enough that I'd want to keep it).

Player-created main character RPGs have always been a great place for the industry to find an 'in' here, I think. We can be honest that The Witcher series would have struggled to find the funding, audience, and success it did with a black female lead. But creating your own? It doesn't face that obstalce. Hilariously, it's actually more economical in many cases to make everyone bisexual, because then you don't need different interactions (and voice lines) dependent on the MC's gender (edit: or maybe at the most, you might need to record multiple pronouns, but those are... literally some of the shortest words possible). Trans characters should be pretty easy in this model too, and fundamentally, it's not forcing anything on the player. You can play what you want.

I thought the CDPR stuff was encouraging when it broke the first time- I guess we'll see how it goes, but it does show that it wouldn't be hard for them to do it.

@Ghost said in General Video Game Thread:

@bored Some friends and I were saying this recently. Bioware used to be THE go-to for RPG video games with depth. EA kinda ruined that for Bioware. Now the age of Dragon Age and Mass Effect are over, and it's open season for some company to be the new go-to.

Yeah absolutely. In this context I was particularly referencing how BioWare essentially defined the 'companion romance' trope in modern games. Baldur's Gate 2 (admittedly these are iffy by modern standards), NWN, DA/ME, etc. And they've often been ahead of the curve for something so mainstream. KotoR had the first LGBT character in the Star Wars EU, for instance. BioWare didn't abandon it under their new management, but they lost a lot of the excellent writing, which Obsidian is carrying on.

Obsidian is the Phoenix that rose from the ashes of EA-diablerized BioWare so it's not too surprising seeing them keep knocking this stuff out, really.

@HelloProject said in Serious Question About Making A MU:

Okay, so we're a bit separated from my old far too fucking ambitious MU thread. A whole year away from me going through therapy and finding purpose and all that random stuff. So I've been thinking about things, regarding MU creation.

So, let's say that you don't really desire a combat system, or if you had anything, it would probably just be some simple dice for emergencies. This isn't really a part of the question, but this is just saying that combat system isn't a factor in my question at all (I know this isn't a popular idea, but it's my preference for this).

Now, let's say that you write up every single room desc, game file, and pretty much everything in Google docs, and you're like, "Man this is basically a fully formed MU".

What next steps would you take here?

WB.

From a technical perspective, if you have descs, news files, etc finished and do not believe you need more than minimal code, much of your game is finished. You need hosting, to pick a codebase (but without code requirements, any of them will work), and go through the varying levels of linux fu to install and run that installation, the effort of which will depend on which one you pick. You don't need all the features, but I believe Ares has actual install images, and will also cover whatever 'casual' code you need (and can handle combat if you decide you want that), so it might be a good choice. Also @faraday is a helpful person.

From a more game design and management perspective, beyond what people have mentioned about staff, you have to think about intended play. You have ideas, but what do you intend for your players to do with them? What characters will you expect them to make, and what will there be for them to do? MUs are social, and often work around orgs or factions of some sort, even if they're not opposed: families, guilds/professions, military branches, etc. Do you have plans for these? Will players run them, or will staff participate? Same for plots: scale, PRP vs. staff run, etc.

Posting here, although the quote is from the prior thread.

@Ghost said in Ithir Mush:

If these are only character relationships, I don't understand the level of OOC attachment and upset that comes along with them without having to assume that on some level they're not entirely IC. Which is a danger zone topic, probably not for this thread.

This whole thing reminds me of the NPC TS ethics argument a little while back (which saw people defending their NPC staff fuckery... not long before a blow up over NPC staff fuckery), and I will say it again:

I will never buy that people who engage in detailed TS (ie, when you are posing graphic imagery in excess of what is required to get across whatever broader-RP relevant sexposition about your characters and their relationship) are engaging in wholly IC behavior. It just isn't. The constant OOC spillover, in every direction, is proof that people are just not that zen and detached about this shit. This is one of those things we're both broadly guilty of and in total denial over as a hobby. And it makes sorting out the actual predatory OOC behavior from the, erm,.. just crazy but still problematic OOC behavior really fucking hard.

-- Anecdotal confessional time, and a little more directly on OP questions --

I've been wrapped up in this to stupid levels. I had a player who I was really close to, where our relationships (we had characters paired on several games) involved those quasi IC-quasi-OOC fidelity boundaries. Sometimes I broke them. She got super mad and chewed me out. I got super mad and defensive about her being so OOCly possessive. Then we reversed roles and did it all over again, with her cheating and my getting pissed and her firing back. After the last round of it, we stopped being so close, which is really fucking sad.

To actually answer the questions, I don't know, at least not universally. Because I believe there is always going to be some (but not equal amounts) of OOC bleed, it will change the expectations. I think me and the above player should have been more honest with each other. But I don't think your obligations are as high when the OOC bond is less. Judging the seriousness of the OOC friendship is probably the hardest part, and it's people who fail at it that are going to turn into creepers and 'crazies.'

@Trix This is basically this forum in a nutshell. Welcome to the show.

We all engage in it, so there's no real value in finger pointing, yet the one place I think it's important to think about is the (relatively) new-ish trend of promoting so-called 'positivity' while engaging in this behavior. If you're doing this, even against someone you think has done something wrong, you're not really promoting anything positive. Extremely bad apples exist, but there's very little difference between how many people treat the absolute worst offenders and players who are just having potentially valid, if emotional, differences on a particular game (whether with another player or staff).

@Tinuviel said in ITT: Names You Always See:

ITT mostly fairly common Anglophone names...

I raise you a Siobhan.

If you count the spelling variations, Ale(c/k/x)(s)(ander).

It has that front of the alphabet 'I gave up looking on page 1' lazy appeal, makes you sound like a badass conqueror maybe?, etc. I'm guilty of the edgy 'Russian with a K' variation myself.

This has to be up there for the tamest drama in the history of WORA/MSB.