@Seraphim73 said in To OOC Room or Not to OOC Room (and Other Artifacts):
I don't find the need for this, especially on Ares-FS3 games, but the lack of them can sometimes confuse new players. Ares-FS3 has the client-side chargen process split up into distinct steps, but it just doesn't require rooms to do so.
One of these days I'll do a web chargen.
After I figure out how to do an in-game chargen.
@krmbm said in To OOC Room or Not to OOC Room (and Other Artifacts):
@faraday said in To OOC Room or Not to OOC Room (and Other Artifacts):
Ares also has a configurable option that ties the OOC lounge to a channel. I think that's preferable, because it lets folks who aren't in the lounge still participate in the chat, and it enables the other channel features like recall and abuse reporting.
This is what we do. It weirds people out the first time they talk in the OOC room and it winds up on the channel, even though the room desc says it does that, but they get over it.
They can leave the channel, yes? That might actually be ideal.
@eye8urcake said in To OOC Room or Not to OOC Room (and Other Artifacts):
@Derp said
Chargen 'Rooms' - Similarly, chargen and advancement can often be completed via a command that starts some kind of program, or possibly teleports you to some predefined area in which you can do the chargen thing. Is there really a need for a chargen room itself, if the chargen command comes with help files?
I love chargen rooms. I especially love the system or program ones that spread it out so you only have to process one part of the sheet at a time, with direct references in the rooms to helpfiles I might need so I don't have to flail around with syntax and the like. Even better when they're quiet rooms with no channels but page/tell and the overall newbie/help/info channels.
I also love that most, if not all, the games I've seen and used this on have an 'advanced' option for those who don't need a hermetically sealed environment to figure all their shit out to skip it.
Well, they can still have roomlike feels. Hell, they can even have actual rooms, probably. My point was mostly that there's no real need to have a dedicated exit for it when you can just type 'chargen' and have it teleport you there, right?
Though I do agree with the idea of chunking chargen into manageable pieces, and leaving advanced options. That's how @THenomain's CoD chargens work. All the commands are there, you can use them from basically anywhere. The rooms are there mostly as just like -- help files.
@GreenFlashlight said in To OOC Room or Not to OOC Room (and Other Artifacts):
why do no two games have the same commands for turning a channel on, aliasing it, and/or turning a channel off?
Those are typically codebase-level commands, so. Probably because they're not using the same kind of code? I primarily have used MUX, so I'm not sure how the others set it up. What's penn/rhost/evennia do?
@mietze said in To OOC Room or Not to OOC Room (and Other Artifacts):
a bunch of game stat wangwaving
This is the worst part of them for me. All the dick-measuring. I am so tempted to create an ePeen channel for that. Maybe call it something more tame, like 'Swagger' or something. I know it's a huge turnoff not just for me, but for other players, and on at least one game I play there are a handful of players that just do this non-stop. It's so irritating.
@sibermaus said in To OOC Room or Not to OOC Room (and Other Artifacts):
I like the OOC room because it gives you a place to stage things and link other spaces together such as the building nexus, charGen, etc.
Alright, here are two others to chew on too:
Big Grids with Player Builds - In some of the modern systems like Ares, you have the option of creating what is essentially a virtual temproom. How big of a grid is too big? How small of a grid is too small? With the ability to summon an additional space basically at the press of a command, is there a reason to still do player builds? (In my experience, they tend to clog the grids fairly rapidly, and often include rooms that never see RP anyway. I am not a personal fan.)
Chargen 'Rooms' - Similarly, chargen and advancement can often be completed via a command that starts some kind of program, or possibly teleports you to some predefined area in which you can do the chargen thing. Is there really a need for a chargen room itself, if the chargen command comes with help files?
So this came up in another thread:
What do people think about the concept of the OOC room on a game?
I'm a bit torn on it. On the one hand, I think that it encourages people to just kind of idle about and not play, which is pretty detrimental to games.
On the other hand -- I kind of think that it's nice to have a place to escape to that isn't the quiet room. But the quiet room plus channels tends to have the same effect, yeah?
What does everyone else think? Would you play on a game without an OOC room?
And as part of a larger discussion, what other things do you think that we've become attached to that we could probably abandon / should probably keep?
@Roz said in Model Policies?:
@mietze I am very much reminded of the amount of public naysaying that went on when Faraday first started announcing her Ares plans and development. Many of the people who called certain efforts pointless, unnecessary, or even bad can now be seen singing the praises of the system.
A lot of the times? Players have no idea what they'll actually like/enjoy on that level. People get very attached to what they're used to, good or bad.
I think that I was one of those people. I mean, I'm still kind of torn about it because I softcode a LOT of personal things for my own reference, but it's really nothing that I can't use notes for.
But I have to say, after seeing what Ares offers, I am absolutely sold on it. Even if it sometimes still baffles me and I have to ask @faraday to hold my hand a little. <.<
But I'm kind of interested in this as a larger discussion outside of model policies, so I think I'm gonna branch this a bit.
@Rinel said in The Work Thread:
@Ganymede said in The Work Thread:
I do love my brood and my partner, but the former need discipline and the latter disappointment.
You're amazing, in a vaguely horrifying and alien way, and it's made better by the fact that I cannot tell at all the extent to which you exaggerate these qualities for comedic effect.
LAW. BOT.
This hobby is crack. She'll be back! Nobody can truly stay away forever. Not even @Ghost.
@surreality said in Model Policies?:
One of the reasons I've long been very anti-politics/issues/activism (from anyone about anything) on games is that it isn't the purpose of the game, and it can create an environment that makes the game less effective as the kind of game it is.
This. That's what @BlondeBot was even saying in the original post. Keep the focus on the game, where possible, at least on the main channels. If you want to have spaces for these, that's fine, but you can have side-tangent channels for that purpose, and that isn't "restricting your speech" or trying to stifle your identity or whatever. Even in the real world there are time/place/manner restrictions on when and where to say what.
I think that WoD is especially noteworthy in lacking #2. Your main sources of plot (in-game governance and primary antagonists) both tend to be rendered toothless before the game even gets off of the ground. The governments are almost entirely created as some manner of PC-controlled democracy, and primary antagonist factions are all but absent. This turns your game into The Sims with Monsters. You need those sources of conflict, and you need them to be present in a significant enough way that PCs cannot simply ignore them or dispatch them easily.
So one policy that I would put up, though others would disagree with -- no top-tier PC leadership. Many will groan. But you'll ensure that your game actually has more longevity in the long run, despite the players that say "Well if I can't be Queen then what's the point?"
@Ghost said in Good or New Movies Review:
@Auspice said in Good or New Movies Review:
The video implied force heal as a super brand new 'just for the movie' thing... except it's been in Star Wars for a long time!
COUGH inTheEU COUGH
No, even in the main movies. We've known that the force can heal people and stave off death for like a decade now. Wtf do you think Anakin was even trying to learn?
@surreality said in Model Policies?:
@Derp Yeah, that's the translation I came to as well. By 'positive relations' I mean OOC, IC popularity/being loved isn't a factor there.
Yeah, I wasn't actually disagreeing. I think we're on the same page. 
I think that @Chet is generally thinking of game design like I do. Rephrased, I believe that he's saying:
A good staffer does not have to be the person that plays the most popular character. You should look for the people that, even when acting as an antagonist, know how to use their actions to further the story as a whole, rather than the one that plays the character everyone likes, as they are more likely to have a fairly balanced hand and be less swayed in their storytelling by the cult of public opinion. Just beware the ones that take their villainy into OOC levels, because then they tend to think that they're on some kind of holy crusade against the injustices of the game.
Good game design requires that the odds are stacked against the characters -- but that the characters can find some clever way to overcome those odds. If everything is copacetic, there is nothing for them to work toward or struggle against. Many people try to create worlds where the characters can live their lives in comfort and get all the fuzzy feels, but those games are lacking a major component. If you give the characters something to work toward, even in the face of overwhelming odds, so long as you have some path for them to progress, even if it's trench warfare, then activity will flow.
@Auspice said in MSB Book Club 2020?:
Well, then. We can at least trial it. Anyone got any books to suggest on the theme nature or... a different theme?
...does Jurassic Park count?
@GreenFlashlight said in Good or New Movies Review:
I feel like a lot of the backlash to the new trilogy is based on the audience resenting that they now have enough critical thinking skills to recognize the things they weren't savvy enough to notice as kids.
Amen.
@Macha said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:
Filling out onboarding and background BS this week (but got a job offer, yay!) - Sadly, the recruiter and I seem to have a communication issue - "Hey, this won't let me sign it." "Please sign this form and send it back to me." " ... I tried to do that, I downloaded it again and refilled it out - it still will not allow me to sign it" "Please redownload and sign it. "
Just... Grr
That sounds like the nightmare that is DocuSign.
@Tinuviel said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:
@Derp I definitely agree that negligent misinformation is bad, but it's certainly not a lie. It's perhaps equally as bad to be negligent as it is to be willfully untruthful, but they're different things.
Well, that's the thing though. You had the opportunity to stop and say "I am not sure, let me check," but chose to provide information anyway, so if that information is faulty and someone comes to harm because of their reliance on it, then you have still willingly made a choice to provide deceptive information.
Remember, ethics are actually divorced from morality, so while you may or may not consider it moral, whether or not it's ethical is out of your control. So whether something is 'good' or 'bad' doesn't matter, because 'right' and 'wrong' are likewise distinct from 'good' and 'bad'.
ETA: I forgot to wrap that up because it's 3am here -- a lie is an ethical consideration, not necessarily a moral one, though it can certainly fall under both.
@Tinuviel said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:
Being wrong isn't the same as lying.
I suppose that depends on what ethical definition of "deception" you ascribe to. There's gray area.
I.e. in many constructions of ethics, negligent misinformation is considered a lie, so you can be wrong and not intend to mislead but still be lying if you give a false statement without doing the due diligence to ensure its veracity.