Best posts made by Darinelle

@ominous said in @Arx: Anonymous Messengers (Answered):

@Thenomain Condemns only affected prestige which had no mechanical bearing on anything other than an e-peen score. If there was honestly a conspiracy to condemn Dawn that was a complete waste of effort and resources for one of the most pointless causes. Might as well work towards assassination or something.

Wow, are YOU underestimating the love some people have for (then) meaningless ranking systems.

@Pandora If enough people feel an angry mob is in order, they could in fact put in an @action to say "I want to be part of the angry mob forming." Also, if a leader DOES do something that the NPCs en masse would hate, then we open a crisis and everyone gets a chance to respond. See also the entire Kennex thralldom crisis, where many people were thrown into disarray by a single proclamation, and millions of silver and lots and LOTS of actions were taken by many people across the board, some of which conflicted, in order to figure out what happened.

There are plenty of ways to turn "I disagree with you" or "I think you made a boneheaded decision" into actual plot that people can respond to - whether the actor is anonymous or not.

In other news, just this week I resolved an @action that involved anonymous messengers (GMs can do this) and shenanigans. It can be done, and we're willing to do it - just not willy nilly based on past experiences.

I wanted something unrelated to Puffin so I chose one of my "good" character names from EQ2. Of course, now everyone knows I'm also Puffin and associates the two, but THAT DOESN'T MATTER NOW DOES IT.

<sobs over in the corner with @Coin >

I hate running combat-only scenes. I've run one on TR and it turned into a nightmare of agony and despair. I was so mad at the end of it, I basically washed my hands of the whole nightmare and didn't do it again.

Which isn't to say I've not run with combat in scenes? But combat-only scenes can go fuck themselves sideways.

@Thenomain I consider "my own time" to be time I am logged into a game but not answering questions directly, not actively working on responses to actions or requests, or otherwise dealing with the Running of the Game. When someone pings me "hey, do you have a second?" when it's "my own time" I say "I really don't, could you please put it in a request?"

Of course, I might still be GMing or answering actions but it's a moment where I mentally give myself the OK to not respond to everything.

@Three-Eyed-Crow - I've actually done this in the past, on TR and on Firan before. It has never NOT worked well, in my personal experience - and I really like it. There are some scenes where it's not terribly possible or appropriate but if the players agree I think it's a nice way to be inclusive to people trying to figure out wtf is going on in a new game.

@Bristled-Thistle - As far as I knew going into it, Harm and Gertie were new-to-me players when I ran with the plot. I get what you're saying about cliques but it was even more charming to meet strangers with no expectations, and to walk away with such a lovely experience. I found out after the fact that I knew one of them but when that plot started they were just people who signed up for a plot I put up on +events, which made it lovely.

@Arkandel said:

@Darinelle said:

@Arkandel - and what about staffers who don't have PCs?

Those poor souls. Why?

Sometimes it's easier to just ST and have fun, and then when you say "look, I'm not taking sides in this, I just want good story" people actually believe you. Of course there's also the fun of STing when your character can't get involved and so people jump all over you ICly for not being effective in the plot that, you know, you're STing.

Not having a character neatly circumvents those things at least. I'm not saying there aren't other problems created by it, but those two things fundamentally lower my enjoyment from STing and so if that's what I'm there to do then getting rid of things that ruin my fun is not a bad idea.

@Miss-Demeanor said:

I remember the MAIN reason HM switched over to player run plots is because staff ST's wanted to be able to get xp on their player bits for running stories as staff. They felt it was unfair that they were doing work with no reward while other players got xp for running scenes. Using a player bit to run a plot back then was a way of gaming the system.

This seems like a flawed system, and the solution should be to reward STers too. If you run a plot that nets the people who play in it xp, why shouldn't you also get xp? I will say TR does that right at least - if you run a plot as staff, you can just request for XP to be awarded, equally with the people who go on said plot, to the character of your choice.

STing is too involved to not reward people who do it, and if they want xp as a reward they should get it. While some crazy people insist STing is its own reward (and to a point I agree), if people have characters but spend all their time STing, sometimes they end up enriching everyone's stories but their own, and that can detract from the enjoyment thereof. Especially if you happen across asshole players, which - and I know this will shock many of you - does unfortunately happen from time to time.

@Eerie said:

@Arkandel

Define then hardcode an activity requirement.

Firan did this. It was extremely easy to get around, and in the end it was relatively meaningless too. It was, however, a good way for asshole staffers to pluck characters from people for no goddamn reason, like the one who booted my RL friend off his character two days after our last scene, with no warning @mail nor anything, for "weeks of inactivity."

Not that I think @Coin and @Eerie are asshole staffers, mind you. Maybe I'm just bitter, but I saw a lot of people camp on characters for years (no, not just staffers or staff friends) with no contribution to the game whatsoever, because hardcoded activity requirements are very easy to get around.

My biggest case for a +meetme command is actually because it makes it SO nice for newcomers. Once I'm in a MU and I know how to get around it's no big deal, but honestly when I'm new and just want to RP with someone, sometimes that initial "but where am I and how do I get to where the fun is happening" is intensely frustrating. A +meetme lets me hit the grid and start RPing immediately, which I really dig.

It's also helpful in scenes when you're running it already and someone logs on late and still wants to come - cuts down the between here-and-there running you do. I get that you don't want people to exclusively use meetme and ignore the grid entirely, but some implementation of the command proper would be super helpful, IMO.

@Auspice said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

Yeah, but right now I can only do very small (3 or fewer people, total) scenes except in very rare cases and maybe two, three scenes a week at most. Lou was awesome. I loved playing Lou, I really did, but I just... don't want to put myself in a place again of having people fussing at me for not doing more.

I mean, feel free to come play a King's Own. It's a slower pace than most of the rest of the orgs, I won't pressure you, and I'm happy to make sure you're updated and have things to do on your own timeline. (I play Leona, the faction leader)