Best posts made by faraday

@thenomain said in Character Information: Wiki or Mu*?:

And as a game creator, you often have to look beyond your own preferences in order to create a better experience for your players. What I think is a foundation, not the whole of the design.

Sure. I never said otherwise. We're just talking preferences here.

At the same time, though, you can't please everyone. There are people who won't play on a game with a wiki. There are people who won't play on a game without one. There's nothing wrong with drawing a line in the sand and catering to a subset of people with similar interests to your own.

@derp said in The ADD/ADHD Thread (cont'd from Peeves):

You've got one of the good ones then.

Maybe it varies by industry? Or maybe you've just had very bad luck? I dunno. I'm not discounting your experience, but mine is very different.

I've worked in the software industry for decades. Sure there are some new kids who have only ever done theoretical stuff in school, some folks who are so divorced from their actual users that they build things that nobody actually wants to use, and some out and out nitwits who should be fired, but they are all the exception not the rule.

I also worked in embedded software for a long time, and the same can be said for the mechanical and electrical engineers I worked with. They were right there in the lab working alongside the techs to transform their CAD drawings into reality, and right there alongside the service and test folks solving the inevitable "bugs" in the designs.

I mean that's ultimately what engineering literally is... practical application of science to solve real-world problems.

@bananerz said in Rosters: To PB or Not To PB?:

Who is in the right here?

Why does it have to be a matter of right and wrong and not just "first come first served"? MUSHes deal with things as limited resources all the time - comic book characters, special roles, whatever. What's the big deal? I mean, I understand the argument from @ThatGuyThere and @WildBaboons that people can share PBs in the "we just look alike" vein but you seem to be taking a pretty adversarial approach about it.

@Tempest What's the big deal here? The thread was moved to the hog pit when it turned into a flame war. @Arkandel and @Ganymede have both said they're looking at splitting it up more constructively. How about we give them some time to sort things out instead of screaming insults at them?

And really, I think everyone who saw the title on your new thread was placing bets on how long it would be till that got moved or renamed. All it would have taken was a title like "Alert about UH" or something and you would've been fine. There's no need to try to turn this into some kind of "@Ganymede has a vendetta" thing when the title was quite obviously not constructive.

When I started doing research for my kids' ADHD (and realizing I had it too), I stumbled upon a crossover video about the differences between ADHD and Autism. It really changed my oversimplified/stereotypical/"Rain Man" view of what autism was.

Then I fell into a rabbit hole of other autism YouTubers like Yo Samdy Sam, and it was like everything in my life suddenly made sense. The obvious things (eye contact, sensory overload, hyper-focused interests, stimming), the weird things (oh so that's probably why I always walk on my tiptoes), and just the way that I've always seemed to think differently from everybody else.

Haven't felt like going through the whole diagnosis process, due to time and expense, but I've gone through umpteen screening tests and the DSM5 criteria and I'm sure.

Roleplaying has definitely helped my social skills. I was catastrophically bad at small talk before I started MUSHing. Now I've learned to fake it halfway decently by mirroring others.

The OOC stuff is hard, because I relate differently. I'm often blindsided by the things people get upset over, because it just doesn't compute for me.

@thenomain said in Respecs.:

I want the world the character exsists in to be consistent and natural for its internal rules.

Yeah that's a good way to put it. It's not that I want to make things un-fun for people, I just want to have a sense of verisimilitude in the IC world. I'm not saying it has to be a documentary because duh. But if you throw in too much implausibility then I just don't know how my character's supposed to react to it, and that's not fun for me.

It's kind of like when people on a historical game ask for historical accuracy. There has to be a balance. Too much and everybody's dying of dysentery on the Oregon Trail. Too little and it's like you're not playing a Western any more you're just doing "Hollywood dress-up". Finding the right balance is tricky, and finding a balance that everyone will agree on is impossible.

I don't see how this is any different from being a game admin. I don't expect to have to use "Staff Voice" "Not Staff Voice" on my game's channels. When I correct somebody, they know it's The One Me correcting them because they stepped out of line. It's not like I'm gonna fool anybody if I say "Hey knock it off" from my PC. (Oh, that was Fara talking with her not-staff voice, she didn't really mean it. No, that's just not how people read it.) And yeah, there's a burden that comes with that, because it can easily make people uncomfortable like @Tat said about their bosses. It just comes with the territory.

@kk said in Autism and The MU* Community:

I don't think there is anything wrong with stiming, but I know it looks werid to people and I try to keep it inside my house or at least in my own yard.

Yeah, my hope is that this is something that education can combat over time, like how it's become more accepted for places like the zoo to offer sensory-friendly experiences.

FWIW I feel your pain on being embarrassed but also think we shouldn't have to be. So what if you rub your legs, or I rub my hands and bounce on my feet? It's not hurting anybody.

@HelloProject said in Hello!Project's Mysterious Game Project Thread:

Like, if you know Ruby and such, can you just code the whole game for your liking, or is it meant to function in a very specific way?

The analogy I like to use is that Ares is a pre-built LEGO castle. If you want a castle, it's great. You can add on new battlements or customize the interior in many ways to make the castle your own, but it's still a castle.

Now of course, it's LEGOs. You could disassemble half the castle and try to build something on top of it, but are you really going to be happy with a weird castle/highrise hybrid? You could even take the whole darn castle apart and make something with the resulting bricks, but that's a lot of work. It would be easier to start with a pile of bricks (a blank slate) in the first place.

So bottom line, it depends on how close what you want to build is to Ares' castle, what compromises you're willing to make, and how much work you're willing to do. If it's very different, start with a pile of bricks - aka Evennia or Rhost.

@bored said in Regarding administration on MSB:

No one sane thinks that, and it's most often a straw man trotted out by game admins trying to shut up discussion here. Please don't replicate their behavior.

Feel free to consider me insane if you like, but for me it's a very simple matter of cause and effect.

Why do you warn people about a terrible restaurant? Because you don't want people to eat there. What is the natural consequence if you achieve enough momentum to succeed? Nobody eats there and the restaurant is forced to close.

Will the recent kerfluffle bring down UH? Probably not. MUSHers are notorious for tolerating crappy staff behavior in the interests of their own fun.

But you're not going to convince me that the majority of MSB-ers grabbing the torches and pitchforks don't wish for that to happen.

ETA: I'm not suggesting that we should curtail negative reviews. There should be a way to warn people about crappy games. But there's a difference between someone posting a 1-star review on Amazon with their opinion, and a bunch of people getting into a pages-long flame war of insults and defenses.

@ominous said in Pandemic Era Issues:

Not necessarily. A lot of these ninnies work around livestock, so they are familiar with ivermectin. They just have never injected a horse's dose into themselves before now.

Right. Also the ivermectin thing is more complicated than common narrative of "Haha look at the dummies taking horse medicine."

Even the FDA's "You are not a horse...Stop it." PSA notes (emphasis mine):

For humans, ivermectin tablets are approved at very specific doses to treat some parasitic worms, and there are topical (on the skin) formulations for head lice and skin conditions like rosacea.

There are actually various studies investigating ivermectin as a potential treatment for covid along with a variety of other anti-parasitics. Note again the language of the FDA (emphasis mine):

Currently available data do not show ivermectin is effective against COVID-19. Clinical trials assessing ivermectin tablets for the prevention or treatment of COVID-19 in people are ongoing.

They're not saying it absolutely doesn't work; they're saying that it's still being studied. Why is it still being studied? Because some researchers believe that there may be some benefit to treatment with anti-parasitics.

There were even some early pre-print (not-yet-peer-reviewed) studies showing that there might be something good there. The problem is - once those studies came under review, serious flaws were identified. So new studies were planned to look into it more. This is pretty much what happened with hydroxychloroquine too.

That's science in action, happening exactly as it's supposed to... only now it's live, evolving in real-time, on a world stage.

The problem is that we have a vicious perfect storm of echo chambers, half-baked media headlines, politicization, and science illiteracy (note: this is different than "intelligence"; lots of smart humans are not fluent in the scientific method) leading people to make really dumb decisions.

Then those dumb decisions get overblown to ludicrous heights by more bad journalism, echo chambers, politicization on the other side until we have a freaking culture war over an anti-parasitic drug.

Insane. Maddening. Heartbreaking. All the adjectives that make me so worked up at 3am I can't sleep and instead am here ranting.

@Wizz Making a game is a ton of work no matter what. My only goal is that code is not the defining obstacle

@surreality said in Regarding administration on MSB:

How and why is it different from the exchange earlier,

The difference is in the tone. I do not believe I attacked you personally (and if I did, I apologize for I did not intend to). I just expressed a different opinion.

Sometimes people have polar opposite opinions. I believe it's ok to say "I think you're wrong" or "I understand that's your opinion based on your experiences but my experiences have been different" as long as it's done respectfully and civilly. That, of course, is also a matter of opinion and on this forum really only the moderators' opinions matter as to what constitutes being over the line.

@arkandel I think that some of the details in the comments from Clooney and a similar interview from McConaughey show why there are concerns about leaving the safety checks up to actors with minimal experience.

"I mean every time I get handed a six-gun," or a gun that holds six cartridges, "you point it at the ground and you squeeze it six times," Clooney said, noting "It's just insane" not to.

You can't do that if the gun is loaded with blanks. You could shoot yourself in the foot with a blank (which may have been what happened in another Rust set incident).

"You hear 'cold' -- now I want a visual," said the Texan star. (McConaughey) "If you and I are in a scene together, I need to give you visual. If it's a six shooter, do you see light through all six holes?

You can't do that when a six-shooter is loaded with dummy rounds for the shot.

"I've never heard the term 'cold gun,'" Clooney said of his years of movie-making. "I've never heard that term. Literally. They're just talking about stuff I've never heard of. It's just infuriating."

Numerous armorers have spoken about the term "cold gun" and "hot gun" in recent interviews. Even McConaughey mentions the term in his interview.

They mean well, but this is just showing how their field of expertise is different from that of armorers, which is why the safety protocols are designed the way they are and why you don't want actors freelancing their own personal safety protocols.

@bear_necessities said in Web portals and scenes and grids oh my!:

the only thing I can say is that the "big complaint" I've heard about Ares is that it doesn't work for people who passively seek RP and that some people have honest difficulties with opening up a scene that might not get used, or asking on RP request. Which... I honestly don't know how to fix for those people and it might just be that Ares games are not for them and that's OK.

That's the big complaint I've heard too and it just honestly, genuinely baffles me.

How do you find RP on NON Ares games? Well most folks find it by:

• Asking (via page or channel)
• Plopping down in a grid room and hoping for the best
• Joining a scene in progress

All three of those things work in Ares too. Additionally you have the scene/start tool that lets you not just plop down in a grid room but actively advertise "hey! RP here!" And when joining a scene you have additional information at your disposal like "This scene is marked OPEN so you're welcome to join" or "This scene is only for Viper pilots" or whatever.

There may be some additional cultural issues with the introduction of asynchronous RP, but but let's be honest - there were always some pitfalls in joining a scene. Unspoken, often game-specific rules about when it's cool to wander in and when you should ask first. Scenes stall, people go idle, sometimes an extra person isn't welcome, and so on. It's never been as simple as "see scene - join scene".

@wizz said in Regarding administration on MSB:

Ultimately I think the purpose this whole conversation serves is to show what percentage of the board feels one way or the other, which to be honest is also a great barometer for "whether or not this iteration of the forum is a good fit for you."

Agreed. And I don't know how to resolve that. (ETA: Well, ultimately the mods will just pick one. I'm just speaking hypothetically here.)

We haven't heard from the majority of the people. We have a couple vocal people on both sides of the argument.

We have people who would leave if there weren't a Hog Pit. That is a fact.

We have people who don't come here at all, or are leery of posting anything here, because there is. That is also a fact.

Which is the majority? I honestly don't know. I do think that pointing to "well hog pit has more posts" is not really a valid benchmark of what the activity could be if the board had a better reputation across the community and more people weren't afraid of being piled on for posting a dissenting opinion.

@ganymede said in Random Oddness or 'Is This Normal?':

Please go see a neurologist.

+1. What you're describing could be many things - some of which are very serious. So now you have free lawyerbot advice and free paramedic advice.

The way I see it, a game has several "dials". These aren't on/off, but a scale:

<--- automated --------------- narrated --->

Automated is coded things like mobs, crafted tangible items, coded sickness, etc. Narrated means driven by GMs/storytellers/players.

<--- immersive --------------- freeform --->

Immersive is code you interact with to simulate what your character is doing. Flying spaceships, navigating dungeons, etc. The code guides the RP. Freeform has few (if any) coded constraints. (I separated this from automated because you can have immersive manual code--e.g. a comms system or news bbs.)

<--- solo -------------------- troupe --->

Are you mostly playing the game by/for yourself, or is it more of a community feel.

MUDs tend to have the dials turned more left.

MUSHes tend to have the dials turned more right.

Code-heavy MUSHes (like Firan) and RPIs have a mix, but slant leftwards.

And you don't have to have one dial for the whole game either. Many games have had some things (combat/space) slant left while others (eating/economy) slant right. Or they have some solo minigames while most of the game is a troupe feel.

So I don't think there's a simple tipping point where something becomes "too MUD" for a player. I think it's a more complex sliding scale of taste. Is the specific combination of dials on a game fun for me?

@bored said in Regarding administration on MSB:

You complain about people telling you to leave if you don't like it, about 'splintering' things. But let's be honest, you want a forum that isn't this one, a forum to suit your friends. Getting rid of people who value the board as it exists is just as splintering, probably far more so.

I really wish you'd stop assuming that all of the dozens of people whom I've heard express concerns through the years were just "my friends". It's not accurate and it's pretty condescending.

I want a forum where people treat each other decently. That has nothing whatsoever to do with whether my personal friends would ever post here or not.

I see no inherent contradiction in believing both that splintering the community is bad and that fostering negativity is bad. I would love to believe there's a reasonable compromise out there. But if there isn't, then it comes down to a choice between the lesser of two evils and we're allowed to have differing views on which that is.

***=I'm not sure this is a spoiler (for Endgame, that is), but just in case...***