Posts made by Derp

I think @Apocalycious might be your best bet there.

@Groth said in UX: It's time for The Talk:

It's complicated because your average MUSH is actually a bunch of nested systems written in a programming language that was designed in order to be storable as a single string while the core commands are all hardcoded.

This. @HelloProject, you keep talking about 'things could be simpler', but honestly? I don't even know what that means in this context. I keep seeing in my head this idea that you want to just type in, "Computer, add a knife to my inventory, give it a +2 damage rating, make it one size level bigger because I'm a giant, and set a note on it that it was a gift from my girlfrirend'. MU doesn't come equipped with Siri, nor is its engine star-trek-esque.

Code creates commands that are either complex or numerous. There is no in between. If you have a system that needs to do five things (not necessarily at the same time), then you end up with either five commands, or one command that can do between 1 and 5 things depending on its syntax, which makes it complicated. (And either way, those five things require documentation).

Nor can you easily have one command that does more than one thing (unless, as above, it has a complex syntax). A command with a simple syntax will do precisely one thing. A MU will not understand the difference between 'add knife' for an inventory command or 'add boobs' for a desc command unless you literally tell it where every possible word would apply, or make it different for every room its used in.

So what exactly are you looking for when you say 'things could be simpler'? Because at the end of the day, I tend to go with "It really can't be."

Edit: Corrected some pre-coffee grammar booboos.

@HelloProject said in MSB MU*?:

@Thenomain

I don't think the purpose of a chat hangout is necessarily to carry on extended discussion of forum stuff (though that would obviously happen), and more just chilling out when not having extended discussion of forum stuff.

I also think it has the potential to allow people to interact with each other in a way that adds a more real-time human element, perhaps enhancing forum interaction by having people more casually interact in a way that isn't a carefully considered forum post.

Discord would be way easier to set up for this than a MU.

The demand is real! Especially if you're gonna do that split-screen retroactive spawn thing.

@Coin said in Spawns and How You Use Them:

I'd love to have access to Atlantis, but I don't have a Mac. Maybe a version for Windows? No? Okay.

This too.

@Sparks said in Spawns and How You Use Them:

So, one thing I've been considering is making spawns less 'concrete', so you can stick them together to view everything or retroactively turn them on and alter scrollback, etc. It sounds to me like that could work nicely for you, so that you could turn off spawns when in 'heads down', and have everything slip into a single thing, but turn it back on with a single click when done Heads Down Mode.

So, I don't use Atlantis (because I don't have a Mac, and I'm pretty sure that it's Mac-only, yes), so I guess take this with a grain of salt, but: Personally, I've always hated spawns because they create a new window that I have to pay attention to.

But if we could combine two of the options mentioned above -- have it just go to the other half of the screen (maybe a little checkbox or something?) and have it pull all that stuff retroactively (another little checkbox maybe?) I'd probably actually use them, because that sounds like a hella nice feature to have.

@Auspice said in Date Thenomain:

@Thenomain said in Date Thenomain:

... What?

@Catsmeow has taken a vested interest in your sex life.

I mean, let's be fair, someone had to.

@Auspice said in Date Thenomain:

penile bragging

To be fair, they did say 'massive genitalia'. Could go either way.

@Ghost said in Date Thenomain:

I have massive genitalia, too! a full collection of x-men comics, work in the IT field, and have a semi-stable job. Now, I'm not into guys, but I can guarantee a post hookup high five, beer and wings, and Predator on BluRay. Maybe Predator 2. Because Busey.

Also, by massive genitalia, I mean I didn't specify that I have a lion's penis.

When I get in there, I don't let go.

If he turns you down, holla my way.

Because damn, son. Dat tweed.

@Thenomain said in Upcoming Changes:

I understand that @EmmahSue makes bank on writing those short summaries of movies that you see. For porn.

If you could send me an application for that, that'd be great...

The Force Unleashed has a mobile version that's pretty fun.. You move your finger around in different patters for different force powers.

Beyond that, if you can increase your mouse sensitivity, you could always go the way of Elder Scrolls. Keeping things squarely in the middle and navigating with the keyboard is easy enough, and it's a good time waster.

Prey, too. I've fallen in love with that game. It's hella fun.

One thing that is always going to be particularly troublesome, at least in my opinion, is the fact that you're not really looking to accurately portray culture, in many of these settings. You're collecting a series of tropes in order to tell a story. And tropes by their very nature are stereotypical. It's hard to the point of being insanely difficult to learn enough about a culture to accurately portray them, so many people are going to go with the shortcut version. And in the current age, it's so easy to offend people of those cultures by playing into tropes that it's basically a tinderbox.

But the thing is, it doesn't just apply to POC. Tropes apply to -everyone-. Everything from your sleazy italian mafioso to your Basic White Girl guzzling pumpkin spice starbucks in Ugg boots. Nobody plays MU's for realism, they play it for stories, and those stories require a certain amount of bending of the rules. Homelessness, mental illness, etc, are all common trope fodder, and can be easily offensive too, and yet we have entire game systems that treat these things as a collection of shorthand tropes.

So where do we take a step back and say 'there is a line we have to draw between authentic portrayal for the sake of not offending anyone and realizing that it's just a story'?

Second sounds cooler.

@Paris, on Fallcoast I'm Enki/Heka.

@Paris said in A Constructive Thread About People We Might Not Like:

@HelloProject said in A Constructive Thread About People We Might Not Like:

I also like to think that there's no fucking way these people wouldn't get dragged for doing that shit in the modern era.

Having had a really unpleasant run-in with an extremely homophobic staffer in the last year or so, which resulted in several other staff becoming pretty unpleasant, and the resulting OOC retaliation and ostracism, I can assure you that people still get away with that kind of shit.

You and I don't always agree on things, but in this case, that is a super shitty thing to have happen. I refuse to accept homophobic OOC bullshit at any level, and that is one of the things that I will absolutely make sure stops, one way or another. It's 2017, that sort of attitude is bullshit in the highest.

@Misadventure said in Fate's Harvest BETA Live (Full Open Soon):

Perhaps a wiki page with links to the changes made? Perhaps with a sentence pointing out where/what topic it will be under?

That would be the Kiths page, under game systems.

Aldo available in game as +kith/ref.

http://fatesharvest.com/w/Category:System

Most of our stuff is organized fairly coherently. It is also available in the game itself under our extensive +ref system.

To be clear here: I don't think anyone is attaching me, though I do appreciate @Surreality for saying that. It's refreshing.

To be clear on another thing: Yes, the entire staff of Fate's Harvest is listening. We are aware of the feelings, we're in active discussion on the matter, and we take your concerns seriously.

What we are doubling down on is this: We are not going to remove a player before they have presented themselves as a problem on that game. This goes against the spirit of things that the Game Owner wants to see become canon there. So no amount of outcry is going to get us to magically remove the player before she has done so.

However, that doesn't mean that we aren't doing something. We've already shifted course a bit in light of these things, and continue to discuss ways to try and help handle the situation in a way that protects us and all of our players, both present and potential. While we haven't come to any solid conclusions yet, you're being heard. We just won't take the (in our opinion, drastic) measure of removing a player from the game before they present themselves as a problem. I know that this leaves some people disappointed, but that's just the way it is.

And on that note: We invite anyone who sees something shady going on to let us know. Staff can't be everywhere all the time, as players have pointed out, but the players also have to communicate with the staff if something suspicious is going down (beyond 'this person is present'). If you see something, say something. Preferably with some kind of log so that we can see it too.

One interesting thing about the game: logging is pretty heavy on most players' to-do lists. If you want to do more than the standard one xp a week, logs must be submitted. Pretty much everyone is aware of that, and scenes get logged pretty diligently, so logging is already in our nature. And we do read them.

So, as constructively as possible: We know. We hear you. We'll take action if it even starts to look like a problem. But so far, it doesn't look anything like that. If that changes, we'll be on it. Trust.

@Thenomain said in A Constructive Thread About People We Might Not Like:

Mind you, the court of popular opinion is not a recognized legal system.

@Rook said in A Constructive Thread About People We Might Not Like:

Wait, what? In MUdom? Oh yes it is. It is how we operate. It is what most MUs are all about, outside of theme!

Yeah. Pretty much this. This entire thread exists because there is a consensus in the court of popular opinion about how problem players should be dealt with, or even who constitutes problem players. I mean, nevermind the fact that some games have rules written in, meant to enforce ethical staffing, that prevents anyone from receiving a scarlet letter based on reputation. The fact that some games haven't taken immediate action against a player who hasn't done anything to earn it on that game is enough to spark an outcry. Look at the last 24 hours on this forum and the no-less-than-3 threads that this topic is being talked about currently.

And that's what I mean by 'it is unwinnable'. If you try and use your own rules, you run up against the Court of Popular Opinion, and if you cave to peer pressure, the idea of using blanket rules becomes pretty meaningless because you're already singling out players from the getgo.

So, my two cents here, trying to move away from specific people to a more generalized thing:

I think that it's a double edged sword in how we go about this. Either way, there's no real way to 'win' when it comes to 'people that other people don't like'.

Personally, I try and avoid Scarlet Letters. Each game is a unique space. They might share players, themes, hell, even code, but ultimately, each game is a thing unto itself. No two games have been perfect copies of each other. Even The Reach and Fallcoast are different beasts, for a variety of reasons, and that's the closest thing I've seen to a copy of one from another.

That goes for players too. I think that if we get into the habit of treating players differently based on past experiences or whatever, it's gonna lead us down a bad road. Players can have difficulties on one game, given that game's atmosphere and environment, that they'd never have on another. I've seen it happen before. While I don't buy into a lot of the 'hivemind' stuff, there is definitely a flow that you fall into based on a game's players, stories, environment, rules, etc, and like all social creatures we'll in some way conform to that, for good or ill.

This makes some people unhappy, sure. People who have been around for awhile and dealt with the same people can be wary, and with good cause. If you don't do what they expect, then you can catch a lot of heat.

But you can also catch a lot of heat singling out players for different treatment for any reason, and not treating all players as if they were playing on a level playing field.

There is no middle ground there. You either do treat them all the same, or you don't treat them all the same. No matter how you try and nuance it, it comes down to one of those two things. And either way, one side is going to be unhappy that you chose that path.

There is no right or wrong way to do it. It all depends on what you want from your game. Me, I choose to lean toward the 'all players starting on a new game have a clean slate, and will be treated as equals under the same set of rules'. Partly because I feel like that's the better option, and partly because it makes it less complicated. i don't have the time, energy, or desire to track the complete MU histories of the dozens of people that have A Reputation in this hobby. I staff on two games right now, and there are literally hundreds of players that I have to manage and work with. The ones with the Reputation are a small fraction of those.

So ultimately, I think that it just comes down to preference. And as I've said before, as much as we like to make it sound like MUers are a cohesive lot when it comes to certain things, it's just really not true. We're incredibly diverse, and we see it pop up all the time. We're just never gonna agree on certain things. And that's okay.

So that's my constructive two cents on People We Might Not Like.