Posts made by Derp

Why are we not supposed to be posting to this one, anyway? I don't get why a duplicate thread was made for purposes that already exist in the current thread.

@Arkandel said:

The only things that don't work are apathy and introversion.

Actually, I tend to manage these two things quite well.

My RP circles are relatively small. This is why I tend to favor things like Pack/Cabal/Coterie/Ring/Whatever RP over 'hey let's get together with ten random strangers and go find a body on the beach'.

Um. No. Why? Because I am generally apathetic as to why there's a body on the beach, or what those ten random strangers are up to. I already found a group that I want to RP with, tell stories with occasionally, etc. If I can't get that, I will surely go fill in RP elsewhere, but neither of those are unworkable concepts.

So, let me try and respond to some of the points that have come up here:

@Ganymede said:

I probably am not being clear on channel. What I mean to say is:

"I'd like to RP with you, in one way, shape, or form. I'm willing to run scenes to do this, and am willing to run anything that I feel I'm capable of doing. All you really need to do is respond to this message."

What's frustrating is the silence. I may not be the best storyteller out there, but I really cannot do it if no one tells me what stories they would like to be a part of. And what kills me is that many players cannot even tell me that.

I'm one of those players that will respond with silence. Not because I don't want to RP with you or anything, but because I absolutely am one of those people who doesn't wish to participate in all the things all the time, even if some of the people that I like to RP with absolutely are those kinds of people. I invented entire character hooks as reasons to back out of / not get into certain things. I like certain types of scenes. I don't expect anyone to cater to those things. They aren't the kinds of things that really require an ST, for the most part, anyway. They are exactly the kind of social things that some of the previous posters have distinguished as NotPlot.

Which brings me to:

@ Some Other People said (basically):

Get togethery type things are not plot.

Bullshit. Sorry, but this one really irks me. I mean, I like murder mysteries and bar brawls as much as the next guy, but... oh. Wait. I kind of -don't-, actually. The kind of thing that I like most involves a battle of wits, or a battle of charisma, or something like that. The ST need not provide a challenge for me to find a challenge in it I want to face. I really just enjoy being in a room with other people, working toward my character's goals. I tend to not favor huge scenes because of spam, but this is absolutely plot, and are absolutely character focus. It is a group of people with similiar interests who might not otherwise RP getting together under the direction of an organizer. And I know that I'm not the only one who feels this way. Coordinating <sphere of influence> gatherings tends to be pretty taxing for the one involved, and usually at least some order of business is discussed there. Character development -does- happen there for certain types of characters. Discriminating against this type of thing, and these types of characters, is a huge trigger of mine. There are books and books and books out there where this sort of thing is -central- to the plot. Calling it NotPlot is narrowminded and elitist.

Edit to add: The reason that most of these things probably seem like NotPlot to many people is that the Big Name NPCs are reserved for Staff Use. So if Staff isn't there to bring them, they aren't there, and it feels emptier. But they -could- be there. They, like players who chose not to show, just didn't show. That does not make the scene lesser. It just means that you can't try to sweet-talk the Big Wig because the Big Wig was off doing Other Shit.

@Glitch

It shows you the first unread bbpost on the list of undreads, yeah. I use it religiously.

Are we looking at +bbnew or +bbnext? because bbnew seems to work ok, and if we're talking about bbnext, might wanna change the title.

Edit: Nevermind, I can look at the code. Duh.

@Thenomain

Possibly! I don't know. It just seems to me that unless you have specific training in those areas, you're not gonna have a clue how to do this. So is it possible? Sure, I guess. Is it going to be possible for your average user who doesn't have a background in programming? Unlikely.

@HelloRaptor said:

@Derp

Frankly, the code has come far enough that unless you have access to God and the server itself, cheating is next to impossible. With everything backed up through SQL and such, not stored on the game itself, it's next to literally impossible to cheat with things like xp. Staffers could do their own xp jobs just with other staffers occasionally peeking at their xp/log.

I needed a good laugh. Way to go, I appreciate it.

I live for your entertainment.

@mietze said:

I tend to avoid STing with my PC involved unless it's for a small group that is like a playgroup ( (pack/coterie/motley) and there's only me or maybe one other person who's comfortable STing so there's no real chance of round-robining and there's no game- or sphere-wide implications.

I generally agree with you, save for one difference. Even if there is a chance of round-robining it, leaving out people all the time and having to figure out reasons for that is especially taxing, and there will always be those characters who are like 'you aren't pulling your weight' when the STing inevitably leans heavier on one person than another. Packs and groups of things like that, your character should absolutely be there, and you guys can even co-ST stuff. One of the most fun things I've ever done in a MU with another person was just two people, RPing basically at randing, playing off of each other's poses to create a story involving two characters. It turned out to be an intensely eerie scene. It was great. We just judged stuff for each other, and cooperated. There is nothing saying in the rules that you absolutely have to be killing each other all the time. It's about the fun.

@Ganymede said:

All I'm suggesting is that we stop calmly red-lining initiatives to give staff a little more faith as a matter of course. We've been kidding ourselves that we can curb abuses through policies or code.

Frankly, the code has come far enough that unless you have access to God and the server itself, cheating is next to impossible. With everything backed up through SQL and such, not stored on the game itself, it's next to literally impossible to cheat with things like xp. Staffers could do their own xp jobs just with other staffers occasionally peeking at their xp/log. I'm not advocating this on any current games, mind you. The policies are there and still in place, even if they're not written. It's just considered good etiquette. But it could be done with very little overhead or worry, unless your game-head is the one with their fingers in the pies, and then let's face it, you're kinda screwed anyway.

Staff can generally be trusted to administrate fairly. It's the split-second judgment calls that sometimes need to be reviewed. They're all players on the same game, after all, and all have an investment in making sure the playing field starts level and stays that way.

@Coin

That's kind of what I mean about support character. Like, in the scene I ran about a week ago, I had my character handling some occult stuff and giving some general background exposition as to why X was at Y place at Z time when they otherwise probably would not have been. I used him to set up some of the scene, handle some of the minor details of things that allowed it to move forward, etc. Exactly what he would have done once the other stuff started. Once the combat started, though, and it was time for the other person to shine, my guy sort of just observed, and made helpful commentary using mostly mental skills, kind of like those NPC narrators in video games that serve as mission control and give relevant details as they become important. Are they there? Yes. Are they the focus of the story? No. But they're still doing what they're supposed to be doing, etc.

@Arkandel

I tried that for awhile. Then it backfired all over me when people were like 'Well your dude was supposed to be there and it turned into a total fucking flakefest when you didn't show and we had X Y Z happen'.

So now I have my characters essentially as the minor support character. With the current mostly-useless wolfblood, that's not a hard thing to do. Werewolves start fighting I worry about Kuruth, and I cower as far away as I humanly can be with a very fast motorcycle ready to go in case people lose their shit, cuz ain't nobody who isn't a super can fight a werewolf, much less three or four of them.

Stupid gauru.

But yeah, it's not that hard for me, and I suspect that generally speaking most people won't care -too- much, so long as they get some swings in equally. But I totally see your perspective on things too. Either or works, really. Just saying, it's not -required-., so people can still partially make their own fun and have their people included.

@acceleration

So then grab a group of friends and do it! One of the beautiful things about NWoD in the GMC era is that you can literally make your own funsies with it. Find two or three people and run plots for each other. Your PC can even be in them, just try to let the other people have the spotlight. That's really one of hte primary ideas of Packs/Rings/Coteries, is that it's a group of players who are going to make fun for themselves, and then staff will attempt to include them in staff-run things when it's possible. But the staff, especially on Eldritch, are rather limited in number, have limited time, and are facing a lot of overhead and administrative stuff, so relying on staff to run all the things isn't really something that you're going to find a lot of fun in, because it's not going to happen.

Staff have slow, long-term, game wide plots that people get picked up in piecemeal. Monster of the week style stuff is what staff are leaning on players to provide. And you don't even have to have it in a plot. All the xp is awarded in beats, and beats are relatively easy to acquire even in that social scene.

Use the Conditions system. No, really. It's great.

Use Aspirations. They, too, are fantastic.

Throw out some rolls. Fail one, take a dramatic failure, make a scene happen. You not only fail to impress JoeBob, you heel breaks and you end up throwing your drink in his face as you faceplant the floor. That's a beat.

Go out and find situations in which you risk breaking points, etc.

There are so many things that can be done that waiting on staff to throw a monster at you is kind of counterproductive to the goal you're looking for. Grab a friend or two, or start running things for people. It will get contagious. Ther are plots and scenes going on all the time, but it's because players go out and do that social RP, get to knkow one another, and then run things for people they think they have a feel for. +events also occur, but are less common because people lean toward specialized plots that tailor to a particular group's strengths.

@acceleration

Social RP is pretty much what MUSHes are, though. You are interacting with peope. People who may be talking, people who may be punching, people who may be doing other things entirely, but you are interacting with people. if social RP isn't what you're looking for, then... I dunno, isn't that was MUDS are all about? Swish-swish-stab style stuff? I was under the impression that MUSHes were about interaction between people, not all action, all the time. I could be wrong. I'm only a year into this. Take it with a grain of salt.

@Coin

Having a vision for the game is fine. You definitely have people that will try and back you up on it. But remember, it's going to grow as its popularity grows. The players are ultimately the ones who are going to create the game as it is, and that's something that just kind of can't be avoided, either. We can try and make it whatever it was supposed to be in the first place, but even with people saying RP is hard to find, etc, it's still more popular than it was intended to be, and only looking to grow further. Artificial stops can only do so much. If players want to do a thing, it's been my experience that they will often try and figure out a way to get included and do things despite limitations, if they want it badly enough.

@Eerie said:

I want to absorb the pros and cons of this substantive debate, but I was unable to get past this part:

@Derp said:

@Coin is often more patient with that crap than I am. >

.... Whaaaaaaaaaat? Are you made of... what, Rage, Hatred and Caffeine?

At 7am? Yes.

Also, I should elaborate. I will deal with game issues all day long, with no problems. I will be patient and courteous and polite to a fault, because I've worked in customer service and that shit is burned into my brain that's just the way I operate. We can haggle on mechanics and rules and plot ideas and game policies and I will remain happily chipper about all of it.

What I don't like is players who feel absolutely entitled to things that are granted merely by dint of the culture having accepted that this thing is for the most part alright, like bringing something extremely petty that there is a ten second solution for up as the biggest ball of drama since OMG because these people are clearly stalkers. I don't mind intervening when there's a big problem, but when people page with stuff like 'Bob just paged me and I told him last tuesday not to page me because he brought me vanilla ice cream instead of strawberry and omg how dare he that jerkface'... that's when I can be something of a monster, because my response will be:

While I appreciate that you feel this is a serious issue, I don't feel that this is a serious enough issue for staff to intervene in. This is a game about communication though a text medium, involving multiple channels of communication through various means. If you would prefer not to engage in private conversations with Bob, might I direct your attention to pagelock? That seems like it would solve many of your issues, here.

See? I'm a monster.

@HelloRaptor said:

...what the fuck? You just used being findable as a method for avoiding interaction. That runs almost entirely counter to what you started with. Make up your mind.

If C and D want a quiet scene at a waffle house, and there are players already in it, copy the desc, hop outside, open a +temproom. Isn't that command pretty common on games these days?

And I gaurantee you, there's more than one Waffle House wherever your game is set.

My position is that you should be able to know where people are RPing at for planning and organizational purposes. How you approach that is up to you. But if you want another one, fine:

Player A is a member of IC Group. IC Group often meets in Location X. But Location X is unfindable, and so those people never show up as being on-grid, and Player A doesn't feel like just sitting in the room waiting for someone to come in. So Player A might not be able to join in IC Group scenes as often as htey would like because there is no reliable way to tell if someone is currently in that room. Players often turn off channels, etc, so even asking there is not a wholly reliable way of going about this. Seeing that someone is physically there, even if they've turned off spam from other things, is a good method of determining this.

There are any number of reasons for keeping people findable, but perhaps it would be easiest to group this all under ' because being able to determine that information is conducive to facilitating roleplay using a variety of means, from finding unused locations to determining major hotspots' .

Does that clarify my position enough for you?

It's the perfect solution. Are there people in Location X? Yes/No. If yes, how many. If people are just looking for public RP, why is that a problem? If they're trying to find someone specific, they can page.

Creating two systems that are meant to do ideally the same thing is not a perfect solution. It is the opposite of a perfect solution, it is a redundant solution that creates needless overhead.

Moderated lists don't really work in a MU* community where people come and go as often as they do, and where building staff get super gung ho about removing builds from the grid (which drives me a little bit crazy). Just flag everywhere that isn't a private residence or secret/group specific meeting place public (with an attribute, not a flag, just a figure of speech) and have +hangouts show locations with people in them in descending order of occupancy. 2 people at the waffle house? At a glance, easy to say C and D don't do their scene there. After all, in your example it shouldn't matter who is at the Waffle House.

But again, I hold that this is a needless use of code when there is already a code that can show you who is at the waffle house, which is a public area. If you're super gung ho about no one ever being able to find you, then that's cool. Have staff @dig you a room with the unfindable flag and just never leave it. That's a solution that doesn't even require new code to be put in place, it's there right out of the box. That seems to me a more legitimate solution to someone's need to never be seen on a +where than adding in a whole other redundant system because you bypassed the first one.

' You' in the general, figurative sense, not you specifically.

I was going to edit, but meh, I can doublepost because it's short:

Most games I've been on have +hangouts code that show public spaces and how many people are there, regardless if any of the individuals involved are Unfindable or not.

I'm not sure that coding a second system to show where people are because people have bypassed the first system to show where people are is a legitimate solution to this. Most game have enough code and commands as it is, and as has been mentioned before, +hangouts tends to be very niche and usually inaccurate.

Now that I've had coffee and the 8am hour is ready to be a thing, I can maybe sound less cranky. Maybe. We shall see!

@silver said:

The ability to hit +where and tell where everybody is regardless of whether they'd like their location known is easily abused.

Most things in a MUSH are easily abused, depending on what one's definition of what abuse is. Is using a coded system to determine where players are currently RPing at abuse? And if people are somehow abusing it, is allowing players a way to bypass the system the best alternative?

If people have the option to use Unfindable and they are choosing to use it, that says something about what their situation is. A good question might be: Why do you require them to be known at all times?

You could just as easily as this from another angle. If you're out RPing in some sort of public space, why should players be able to hide from that? Again, I dislike the flag in general, but if it's going to be used, I would prefer it to be used on rooms, rather than players, basically for this specific reason. If you're out in public, you're out in public. You're not hiding from anyone, and anyone can come up on you.

If the concern is that too many people are Unfindable and no one can tell where any RP is going on, that points to a larger cultural problem on the game. These problems start at the top. Punching down at individual players is not how you solve those.

It's not punching down at individual players when it's a blanket policy that applies to all players evenly.

Unfindable is not the same as Dark. It's more akin to taking your phone number off of the telemarketer list.

I'm not really sure where you were going with this one, so I'm not sure how to reply to it. Can you elaborate on what you mean? It might be too early, or I might be undercaffeinated, but I'm drawing a non-sequitur here, and I can't help but feel that there's something here that's worth discussion, I just can't find what it is.

I really can't think of a reason to demand that people remain findable at all times except if you just have to know where specific people are without letting them know you're checking on that.

Alright, here's an example: Player A and Player B are hanging out at the Waffle House. Player A and Player B are both set unfindable. A couple of people decide to get together for a scene at the waffle house, because the +where shows that there's nobody there that they'll be disturbing, or because they want a quiet scene. So Players C and D show up, only to find that, lo and behold, A and B are there already. So they made a plan, got together, and then had to change that plan because A and B are using commands to bypass the code that specifically tells them if there are people at a place. This is why I would require players in public, non-private build areas to remain findable at all times. An unfindable room will hide you if you have a private build going, you don't need to set yourself unfindable when in a public grid space.

@helloraptor said:

I'm pretty sure I heard that if it's legitimate harassment that a MU*ers charobject has ways of protecting itself.

They do. Like pagelock. I think I might have even mentioned that one above. Setting a player unfindable, however, applies that to all players, not just creepy stalkers.

So since the Done Right thread has been derailed for the last three pages or so with Unfindable foo, and I really was enjoying the Done Right thread, I'm gonna go ahead and move this one over here so that people have an outlet for it.

As far as the Unfindable flag goes, I'm really of two minds on it. I think that MU's are about interaction, and when you give the players tools to bar interaction, then you're essentially adding a poison pill to the MUX. More people will start using this eventually, and that just leads to a bad gaming environment where people are always unfindable and just bypass the tools coded specifically to let you know where people are RPing at.

I agree that if harassment is a thing, staff should be involved. Sure, staff hates babysitting, but if it's legit harassment, we'll deal with it. Hell, I will specifically and happily deal with it and tell said harassing d-bag to knock it the hell off already before they see my angry face. On the flip side of this, I will also tell you that you're being a whiny baby, and what this person is doing is not harassment, it's legitimate social interaction and seriously stop feeling so entitled, but as a last resort you can pagelock them all on your very own, here's how, (and if it's IC, then you should be dealing with this IC, in theory, because that's the nature of the game) but I'm kind of a monster. I can be pleasant but seriously, @Coin is often more patient with that crap than I am. Just throwing that out there.

If you absolutely MUST for some reason use the Unfindable flag (and I am somewhat doubtful that there are really more than a handful of legitimate reasons to use it), I would much rather see this restricted to specific rooms, rather than able to be used on players themselves, and even then only staff-settable. Sometimes, you might have a really good reason. I tend to 'ok' things like that more often than poo-poo them, but you're gonna need to tell my why we should allow you to bypass a roleplay tool specifically designed to perform this function, since it applies to everyone, not just your stalker or whatever.

But in general, I would disable this as a whole.

Edit: Sigh, ok, I'm not that much of a monster. I try and be pleasant and diplomatic and find the happy middle in all things, because I like smooth operations, but dammit, a boy can dream.

@silentsophia

That's pretty much every state. If you don't have kids, then too bad, your tax dollars aren't for you, they're for the 'unfortunate' woman who hasn't worked a day in the last fifteen years and has nine kids with four different dudes, and another one on the way because her benefits were about to run about so time to start the cycle all over again...

Yes, people legitimately need some of these things, and the programs are good, but there is so much abuse of this system that doesn't get -counted- as abuse of the system (because they follow all the rules, in theory) and that hurts everyone.

It's why I hate it when people say 'welfare abuse is practically non-existant'. Yes, it is existant, it's just gaming the spirit of the rules, rather than the letter of the rules. That kind of shit should not be rewarded. If you can't support child #10 and have been on welfare for fifteen years, then the appropriate state action is not to keep paying you, but to step in and consider placement for the children to increase quality of life.

I don't care how much people scream about 'what about the children' or separating families. Those children are learning extremely poor social mores, and will carry those things on. Fuck that. I would rather see ten responsible citizens who got taken from their mother than ten irresponsible citizens who learned to be that from their mother.

</rant>

@WTFE

it should re-appear if you reload, sinc eyou didn't go to the page with the latest unread foo on it. I do this. It seems to work.

@Miss-Demeanor said:

Counter Peeve: Are people really so sensitive you can't just say 'hey, that outfit doesn't work for what we're doing'? Seriously? We have to find ways to say it that doesn't hurt their feelings? Fuck that. I have little time and less patience to concoct winding, rambly phrases that avoids blaming the person who chose the outfit despite knowing which activity was going to be taking place just because their delicate psyche can't handle it. I do not sugarcoat for adults. Real world, people, get used to being bluntly told you did something stupid/silly/shouldn't have done. Accept it and go change your goddamn outfit so we can get to where we're going or someone else is probably going to bitch that we're late.

So, so much this. +9000