@thenomain Fair. I was more approaching this that while you are being relatively civil and constructive about this despite being angry, there's always someone who goes too far. The Hog Pit exists so we can have bad things in a bad place.
Granted, sometimes there are games that deserve nothing but scorn.
Still.
Mildly constructive for now might be a good compromise.
@thenomain Can we move this to the Hog Pit? I'm interested and engaged in reading this but I'd like to respect the conditions of the Advertiser section.
I use a few kinds, switch them up depending on what I'm using them for:
Swerve - available on Amazon but its lately been showing up at Walmart
Lankato Monkfruit - Amazon also carries this but I've only ever seen it in brick and mortars at Whole Foods
There's also Xylitol which I haven't tried but I've read that of the three it has the least amount of aftertaste. The others have a very slight one but some people really dislike it.
Sorry for the delay, the boards don't always show when I have replies.
I am jet lagged af. My body thinks I should still be on another continent. I keep reminding myself its Saturday here now where I am.
In past times, I would have bought myself a pity pizza from feeling tired and cranky and shitty and slightly disconnected from reality from the three other things and then been kind of shitty to myself about it afterwards.
I made the decision to cut sugar about 6 months ago. I know, I know I've become one of those people who is one or two lifestyle choices away from irritating the fuck out of everyone I know about crossfit. But honestly, I feel better. I sleep better. I lost weight though I wasn't really trying.
Instead of ordering a pizza and getting into a wretched body image argument about it after the fact, I made sugar free french style custard (I got a ice cream machine for the holidays) and now I'm sitting on my couch, eating chocolate chocolate chip sugar free ice cream and not having a body image freak out.
I loved the books. I'm glad this game happened.
@groth Fair but I'll try and clarify what I meant:
There are coders in this community - many in fact - but they are outnumbered by the players who don't know how to code. From that pool as I think @Meg pointed out, you have to find coders who want to give freely of their time (there are some perhaps more than some) to a project and a lot of that comes down to their interest level in that particular project.
That's where the personality issue and clashes come into play.
It's been my experience that depending on code language, we tend to see particular repeat coders. The reasons for this are a few but in my experience of this hobby and in the games I tend to frequent, the coders tend to be a particular roster of people. Since they have a skill set that's particular, they do hold a certain amount of cards when it comes to agreeing to take or pass on a project and sometimes its time and interest but finding both can be difficult when you don't want to work with who is asking for either.
Running a game is also a problem in terms of finding staffers who want to, are able to find the time, and don't have a problematic track record. That's also a problem but to my way of thinking, you can't open a game unless its functional which is where the code part comes in... Or, you can but you'll drive people off in asking them to scale your CG process for example without it being user friendly.
Yeah, when I use the term 'urban', I speaking more generally to that kind of genre than the setting. There are plenty of small town settings that still fit this bill - it's really more about modern setting, modern anachronisms, and modern concerns vs. lords, ladies, and flouncy dragon drama.
It's also the case that the last major WoD game opening turned out to be a giant turd and there's just no other alternatives at present that aren't fresh or hiiiiiighly problematic.
The application cap - which I think they announced in advance - turned out to be one of the few smart decisions the game owner made. San Francisco was an unfortunate train wreck because its owner is just kind of a spiteful, controlling jackwagon, who depending on who you ask may or may not be a thief as well. That kind of poison in the core of an otherwise promising premise is never going to really recover as long as the association remains. I think if other people were to run it, it might recover but I'm told that's likely never going to happen because the owner won't part with it (but won't run it either) so it lingers into a slow death.
I know Miami has been in forever development but as time moves on and the refrain of 'we're working to make sure everything is really set up before we open' gets fainter and fainter - it does appear momentum has been lost and that chances of it opening are uncertain and looking grim at best.
I have no idea what's going on with Reno-rebranding-to-Portland.
Even if this is WoD adjacent at best, there's a market for WoD and next door to it in resonate feeling in this community because of the theme and in spite of the dense and often bullshitty mechanics and poor prospects at this moment at time.
It's a great time to be offering something along those lines but the start up "capital" to get a game going requires time (people can find that), a place to set up (people can pay for that), and coders who can knit the backend systems together (this is often the hardest part to scale). Because there are so few coders in this community so they have the ability to be choosy about the projects they want to work on and the people they want to work with and the complicated history of a lot of these former partnerships on other past games means that some coders won't work with game owners and vice versa.
Just easier said.
Hard to do.
@faraday My intention isn't to be contrarian but I think it needs to be qualified that the kind of game we're talking about has dictated application response.
Certain themes/genres have larger appeal and fanbases than others. I don't think its necessarily coincidence that the WoD games that have opened recently or might eventually open (hi Miami) roll up into the urban fantasy/modern horror niche that tends to have a fairly wide response base.
Something a little more niche in terms of IP or theme is probably also going to have a different level.
I guess the thing I'm kind wondering is - while I don't assume bad actions or intent on the part of staff, it does seem a little unable to read the room that genres and themes that have tended to garner stronger application responses and tend to have a larger draw in the MU* community wouldn't pull in a large number of applicants. Especially because there's such a noticeable lack of operating above stall speed or open games in this wider genre right now.
It's a lucky break that their timing was so good but it is a bit surprising that they didn't seem to be aware that a good chunk of the community wants to play in these types of games?
@meg Thanks I appreciate you saying so. I know its a weird and irrational feeling to have but those are the nature of feelings. I think its rooted in feeling like there's not much out there in Mu* land lately that feels like a vibrant game and is also a theme or system I enjoy playing. I think if there were more games operating lately, it wouldn't feel so 'privileged by conditions that allow you to be online at certain times' vs. 'you can't have nice things for arbitrary reasons'.
I guess I'll just watch and wait and hope that of the initial surge, the population levels out and they start accepting applications.
I was actually really excited to play but being one of those players who has a full time job where I can't login from work, my plan was to work on my application as soon as I got home.
I feel kind of weirdly ... punished or something that I can't be online all day. I already struggle with this or have on other games where the light speed nature of those games leaves players struggling to balance and keep up. There will be other games and its not the end of the world and this does suggest that I'm a poor fit for a game that seems to move too fast even at opening.
I was just digging the theme and legit excited. So yeah. I'm bummed.
@wretched We have scene overlap re: SF Goth a decade ago. Add JJs and the Cracktory parties to things we may have also been at, at the same time and we probably were around each other and never knew it.
I liked creative writing and had a friend who started playing in a MU* as a way to do that and told me about it. I didn't really have any deep understanding of mechanics or genre as it was all really new to me and I hadn't TT'ed before. I just liked the idea of being able to write creatively. And now I'm trapped, but happily trapped.
I meant to add this earlier but spaced:
I'm relatively newer to RPGs (tt games, larp, mu* - I kind of freely associate them as being facets of the same hobby). I didn't start doing the nerd stuff until well into my adult life. Part of this was having some interest but feeling the social pressure of not standing out so feigning disinterest in my youth. Part of this was having parents- at least one who is actively weirded out by all this and for religious reasons associates it with the occult- who would have never been supportive.
This has resulted in not being out to my parents about this hobby. I'm also in the closet at work about my free time. I "go camping" a shit ton, my co-workers think I'm super outdoorsy. It helps that I'm pretty athletic and I live in the Pacific Northwest where people don't look twice at the frequency of that hobby. I definitely also notice different levels of socialization between me and other gamers in certain situations- this is not always to my advantage.
@ganymede This is more or less my passing thought that I'm weighing.
I'm here with this hot taek:
I've seen people try to MU* in video games and hoooooly shit is it the most annoying thing to witness. I give zero fucks about /dance emote through someone's v. serious wedding RP in a public tavern.
So: ney.
Never shall these twain meet.
I'm thinking about going back because I can use it when interpreting and consulting on federal legislation. I worked in the federal system for a bit and then got lured into a tech industry job (more money and the idea of their being less politics at the time). But I'm bored af in my job and while the job itself is fine, the politics around it are/ became worse than anything I put up with in federal sector.
Mostly, I have the opportunity and ability to do something more meaningful with my life (to me anyway) and this would open a lot of doors. I have an advanced degree in another area, so I have endured graduate school so it would be a familiar kind of soul crushing tedium that I enjoyed. I'm also older, and some of my quitting was due to being unfocused and uncertain about what I considered valuable in life.
ETA: The crushing debt load gives me pause, however.
I made it past 1L in law school and fucking quit. I crushed my 1L fall exams (the hardest set of exams in law school or so they claim but I think its mostly because you're properly traumatized after that) and then realized that I hated everything about the idea of being a lawyer and quit.
I have considered going back because I could use this skill set for something else. I can't fucking make a decision about this.
I am that person who has to research a major purchase or life change to death. It's not indecision - I want to know the things so I can make the best decision.
I think burial is an absurd waste of space and insist on being cremated. Ideally, I'd like my ashes spread in space.
I've been to 27 countries and have 2 more on the list in 2019.
My uncle (who survived Stalag 17 and jumped out of a burning plane falling out of the sky to save his own life in WW2) is probably actually my grandfather. I won't be able to pry into this until after my father is dead out of respect to him.
I have no tattoos out of respect to my mother, who is violently offended by them. I will pursue one after she passes away.
I think forgiveness is important. There are certain people and things in this hobby that I've forgiven, both because there have been apologies and definitely there's been no apologies. The first is nice- sometimes really nice, if for no other reason that you feel seen and heard about how something was hurtful when it didn't need to be. The second is more of a function of needing to just move on in life. Here again, I'm not waiting around for someone to pony up on apology but you run the risk of getting stuck in a sentiment or a feeling that doesn't do anything productive and just makes you feel like shit.
I also think sometimes you do things that are upsetting to someone else and apologizing isn't enough or for whatever reason, trying to offer one is the wrong idea. I think in those cases, if it's not enough or you just think attempting to apologize is going to be more harmful than helpful - you just have to agree to learn something from it and not repeat that behavior.
I've been in this hobby a long ass time. I started mushing in my late teens as a way to escape an abusive situation at home. I had a lot of coping and survival mechanisms from my real life that I imported into mushing because I'd gotten by in life on those so why not in virtual space. One of those things was trying to overly manage other people's feelings. Children in abusive households often become hyper sensitive to everyone else's emotional barometer and when things are too hot or too cold, they work hard to please the situation. I am/was certainly no exception to that experience, I'm a grown ass adult but I still catch myself doing it.
One of those things that's an extension of all this is passive aggressiveness. For me, it stemmed in being ultra terrified of any sort of confrontation. In my young life, confrontation wasn't about disagreement - it was volcanic displays of fury that sometimes got the cops called. So, the next and only thing to do was to swallow your feelings, avoid confrontation, and pretend everything was just fine. Regardless of being aware of where it comes from, it didn't serve me well for a long time in the MU* wider world. I certainly ruined some otherwise positive and happy online 'working' relationships and friendships because I was ultimately too terrified to just say something that might be upsetting.
I've been through a shitload of therapy as an adult because I got tired of feeling like garbage about this. I have much more clarity and self-awareness around this behavior but because I'm a flawed human being, I still feel myself slipping back into familiar territory. I'm generally much better about it and behavior in general. As much as anything is a work in progress until we no longer draw breath.
But there are cases where I can't find the person in question that I didn't behave well towards because time and the closure of games. In some cases, I've no idea if these people even remember those choice moments - they probably don't and chances are, that momentary blip of conflict was just that for them. But believe me, I remember those blips.
There are cases where I think I know how to find people from the past but I'm not sure they want to hear from me. I don't want to invade boundaries just to offer an apology as that seems like anti-thesis of the point. In both those cases, all I can really do is not repeat my mistakes and missteps, even if that player never knows about it. I guess that's how you prove that you're trying and hopefully succeeding at being sorry for what happened - by trying to avoid repeating the same pattern.
I think the really oogy thing here is that personal, private details about offline lives became fodder for this and not just like irritations and passing upsets that happen between players while logged in to a game. I guess that's the part that's making me squirmy in terms of whats alleged because if true, that's kind of a big problem. I'd be super unhappy and justifiably spooked that someone I didn't know in any offline sense went out of their way to repeat personal life details about me to another player on another game. That's a lack of boundaries that's beyond.
I agree but there seems to be a number of people who are confirming that some amount of behavior happened here? I'm not really sure what the benchmark needs to be if several people who have been targets of these rumors provide credible confirmations that they were targets of this behavior.