@thenomain said in Good or New Movies Review:
I almost wanted to ask if Frankenstein was American Gothic and Dracula was British Gothic, but I didn’t want to appear stupid.
Frankenstein is undoubtedly British Gothic, in my mind, but it tinges on science-fiction as well. Shelley was one of the first sci-fi writers, in my opinion. Frankenstein is a mix of sci-fi and horror, but The Last Man was all science-fiction.
@pandora said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:
Yet another edition of Vampire the Masquerade. Fueling no doubt another deluge of WoD cookie-cutter MUSHes this year.
As an avid player of the game, I too am angered by this.
Like, holy shit, staaaaaaaaahp. Enough widdis.
@wizz said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:
You guys should be having that conversation once in a blue moon for weird borderline cases, not often enough to dissuade you from taking any action at all.
We have these quite often, actually. Most of the time, it goes sort of like this:
Auspice: I think we have a problem.
Arkandel: I wonder what we can do about that problem?
Ganymede: Crush the problem.
Auspice: We could potentially do X.
Arkandel: What about Y?
Ganymede: Option Z is most appropriate, and it is to crush the problem.
Auspice: If we crush everyone, Gany, we won't have any more membership.
Arkandel: I wonder what having no membership would be like?
Ganymede: Serenity. Peace through tyranny.
Well, sort of, at least. With little less Megatron.
But, we talk. A lot. As of a few months ago, if you saw something it was for a reason.
@jaded said in General Video Game Thread:
Ah okay. I was thinking it was just common 55 ton IS mechs.
Well, the Bushwacker is a common 55-ton IS 'Mech, but it has double heat-sinks, ferro-fibrous armor, and an ER Large Laser. It's gonna be a lot better than the original Trio, which didn't have that advantage. If we look at the improvements to those 'Mechs in 3050, we get:
So, the 3050 variant of the Shadow Hawk gets an extra 2-pack of short range missiles and an extra medium laser, but loses 2 tons of armor from the original version to get to that point. Yes, they are Streak systems, but the Griffin and Wolverine take advantage of the new technology, and still out-pound the Shadow Hawk toe-to-toe. Also, the Shadow Hawk is now less protected, as the other two have at least two tons more armor.
Again: the Shadow Hawk blows, has always blown, and will continue to blow. Fuck the Shadow Hawk. (I like the way it looks, though.)
@faraday said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:
More moderation sounded pretty ruled out to me? Maybe I'm missing something.
From our conversations beyond the curtain, the answer is still undecided.
Clearly, there has to be some moderation, but I think the issue is whether we are going to dip in and monitor the place with an iron fist, simply keep an eye open, as we usually do, or somewhere in between. I take Arkandel's comment to mean that we aren't going to go with the former, even if I wouldn't have a problem cracking down like ICE in El Paso.
Regarding policy, I take Arkandel's comment to mean that forcing people to be nice to one another is beyond the scope of what we'd like to do. Grumpily commenting when there's dog-piling or shit-storming isn't the same thing, in my opinion.
@jaded said in General Video Game Thread:
Your analysis is spot on. And if you added the the Bushwacker - it comes off as an even weaker mech choice.
The Bushwacker was a 3055 product, and not available in the original Battletech (Battledroids 2E, basically box set. It uses 2750/3050+ tech, so I don't consider it part of the original triumvirate.
@faraday said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:
Not to be defeatist or anything, but if we rule out manual moderation, and we rule out automated tools, and we've demonstrated that policies by themselves don't help, ummmmm..... what's left?
I don't think we've ruled out manual moderation or policy fixes.
@jaded said in General Video Game Thread:
I agree. But for game balance a Shadow Hawk, provided it is the right variant, is not a bad choice.
I'm a backer for the game though - I better get this Shadow Hawk that's all I have to say. Lol.
Admittedly, I'm a purist. I played Battletech just after it was renamed from Battledroids. The Shadow Hawk is part of a trio of 55-ton 'Mechs, all of which are generally the same when it came to armor and speed; however, the original Shadow Hawk could not jump as far as the others, and had a spread of weaponry that made it awkward at medium ranges.
Its two competitors were the Griffin and the Wolverine. The Wolverine hosed people at medium and close ranges; the Griffin pounded opponents at long and medium ranges. (Actually, the Griffin could hose you at anything but extremely-close range with that PPC.) The Shadow Hawk, while having no glaring weakness, also had no obvious strengths, except being able to generally stay out of other 'Mechs' optimal ranges. Against its competitors, however, the Shadow Hawk was out-powered: if you got it in medium range, the other two 'Mechs would pound the crap out of it.
We had a tournament at school once, and everyone who picked the Shadow Hawk as part of their compliment got beaten badly. Why? Because the damn thing was but a distraction. (You had to pick 100 tons worth of 'Mechs, and played on a standard 4-map battlefield.)
So, that's where I'm coming from. If you can take a variant, well, that's different because there are eleventy-billion of those.
@lithium said in General Video Game Thread:
5 more days!!!!!!11!!!!11@!!
My birfday is the day after.
Not-so-amusing: if you pre-order, you get the "Shadowhawk Pack."
First of all, it's Shadow Hawk. Shadow. Hawk.
Second of all, it's the fucking Shadow Hawk. That's like offering nude pictures of Kelsey Grammer as a teaser when you're trying to promote skin pics of the stars of X-Men: The Last Stand.
Jesus, everyone knows you start with the Atlas. It looks awesome. It sounds awesome. You'd run over your own mother to get one.
@lotherio said in Wheel of Time mechanics:
Daithi channeled @Seraphim73's RNG luck on Fifth Kingdom.
It was Legendary.
@faraday said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:
But I think it's a tradeoff. No downvotes = no serial downvoting bullying. BUT with downvotes there's a way to register disagreement with a post without 10 people feeling the need to post saying: "Dude, you're an idiot".
@lithium said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:
And I am of the opinion that downvotes would do the same but against negative posts.
Which would we rather see reduced here? Me too support posts, or me too negative posts?
I'm quoting both because I want to respond to both at the same time.
I agree, Lithium, that putting downvotes back on probably would reduce the "me too" negative posts. But upvotes, in a way, reduces the same; if someone else voices their disagreement, and you support that disagreement, you could always upvote the dissenter. That is a way to register your agreement with that position -- however negative or ugly -- without spitting out a "me too" negative post.
Not that people will think that way if they are truly in the mood to grind someone down, though, right? I think that if people want to say something demeaning, pejorative, or nasty, they are going to go out and say it. And if people want to passive-aggressively do the same, they can hit that downvote button and thereby hurt someone, especially if they know that person is sensitive to their own reputation. We took out the downvote, I think, to address the latter problem, and the rest I think is a matter for the mods to handle.
It's a good suggestion, though. I also like the idea, if possible, of having different kinds of "likes," like what surreality's talking about.
@lithium said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:
So change it so downvotes don't touch popularity? The whole 'popularity' metric needs to get tossed on it's ear to begin with, it's complete bullshit.
By "popularity," of course, I mean the up-voting function, and, to my knowledge, the down-votes will affect whatever vote score is out there, or not.
(Childishly, yes, I like the fact that I have the most reputation, ha ha ha, peons, grrr, no, not really, but anything I can do to tweak Arkandel.)
But if we remove the function, then, based on your reasoning from before, the foreseeable consequence would be people posting to support someone else's negative opinion of another, thus starting a dogpile. So, let's say, you and I were to get into a disagreement about something; it is foreseeable that someone who hates you and has a vendetta might pipe in to support my opinion, and then take a snipe at you. And then, you respond to them, and they reply back, and another person backs them up with another post and a snipe, and then, the cycle continues.
I'm ambivalent, truly, on the idea of up or down votes, but I think they are calculated to minimize the number of "me too" posts that may crop up.
Deep Sky Derelicts.
It looks like it could be easy to code into a MUSH. I want to believe it could be, because its combat system is so interesting.
@lithium said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:
I actually think the lack of downvotes has increased the amounts of dog piles and negativity.
This is entirely possible.
On the other end, though, I think people wanted downvotes turned off because it created the perception of silent witch-hunting. Some people just didn't like others, and allegedly used the downvote function just to point that out, without discussion or rhyme or reason.
It's not pleasant to see your "popularity" decrease with each post you make, just because a cadre of folks are on a campaign to pull down the rating. Even if you stay out of the Hog Pit. Even if you say nothing but positive things. That, to me, fits in the definition of bullying.
I realize that we can't stop bullying altogether or entirely, even if we were to shit-can dogpiling here entirely, and enact harsh penalties for it. I think we can try harder, though, to make this place just a little bit safer for everyone to put up their thoughts and (dare I say it?) feelings without a squad of people boot-heeling them in the virtual sidewalk.
@lotherio said in Wheel of Time mechanics:
Thanks to Daithi, we got to run turtles vs wall, two turtles vs a section of wall set up using FS3 vehicle.
Those battles were more like:
Daithi yells something incoherent.
Enemy nearly cuts Daithi's head off; he goes down.
Healer revives Daithi.
Daithi grunts and goes back at it.
Enemy nearly cuts Daithi's head off again; he goes down.
Healer revives Daithi.
Daithi swears and goes back at it.
Enemy sticks a sword through Daithi's belly; he goes down.
Healer revives Daithi.
Daithi loses his shit, and crushes Enemy's skull with axe.
Enemy slowly dies wondering what on Earth will stop Daithi.
Everyone else in the party destroys the wall while Daithi serves as a meatshield.
Which was really frustrating from my end because I just wanted to hit people with an axe.
Anyhow, so goes the Legend of the Turtle.
I don't know if any mod has ever stepped in to tell those posters "yo, point made, move along." But we have moved in when a poster is dominating a thread through multiple, generally unproductive or shit posts.
@seraphim73 said in Wheel of Time mechanics:
But man, I've been totally spoiled by automated systems, because while a 4 on 4 fight in WoD or Saga might take 6-8 hours, it takes 2 most of the time in FS3, maybe 3 if one or more players is slow.
Lotherio had scenes on Fifth Kingdom where there were 7 v. 7 battles, and they still only took 2 hours. You simply tell folks to hold poses until 3 rounds of combat were done, and then gave them 2 minutes after each round to change their action, if necessary.
Seriously, automated systems are awesome.
@surreality said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:
Being brutally honest? Some people just want to watch the world burn. Some people just want to wank their grudges. Some people will not see reason, or simply will never give someone who slighted them once a shred of benefit of the doubt ever again.
Nothing I'm talking about is going to change these people, but appeals to the reasonable people -- who I think are the vast majority of posters here -- that they have sometimes swayed into little hate cliques or dogpile teams or commiseration spirals or gossip circles strips support from the truly intractable hate-spewers and bullies.
Then, a suggestion.
When one of us does something you agree with -- the general you, not General Yu -- up-vote the intervention. You don't need to post anything to indicate your agreement. Just a "okay, I agree, but I don't want to say anything because, whoa, there is some crazy going on here, gurl, and I ain't into threesomes."
Similarly, when someone says something you agree with in opposition to something you don't agree with, maybe just do the same thing. Dogpiling starts with the seemingly-innocuous "me too, an' yo' momma" and ends up snowballing into "well, shit, if other people are going to dump on this poster, then, by golly, Imma gonna do it too." It's sort of a mob mentality thing, and the horrible thing about it is that otherwise reasonable people get pulled into it.
It's an actual thing.
Anyhow, sure. Okay. I'll speak up more, even in the Hog Pit that I said I didn't want to, and won't, police.
@surreality said in Hello MSBites! Grade your administrators.:
Arkandel asked us as forum participants to call this behavior out when we see it. And mod or not, you are also a forum participant.
I did, as Lithium can attest to.
I even called myself out on the double-standard issue, and revealed an embarrassing incident where I went so far out of character I didn't know how to apologize properly. For months.
What I have noticed is that, when one of us mods says "please stop," there's pushback. There's pushback from whomever the mod may have replied to, even if the post is worded to apply to everyone. There's pushback from those who aren't even involved, who want to weigh in on whether there should have been any response. There was a very vocal discussion on whether or not we should preface messages with "MOD VOICE" to distinguish tones. And the personal tone of some of the reproaching words directed at Auspice was nothing short of outrageous to me.
If people -- all y'all -- want someone like me, Arkandel, or Auspice to step in and tell you when you've gone too far based on our own subjective opinion on what "too far" means? I'm really okay with that. What I've noticed, however, is that when we do that we often stir up more trouble than the trouble we sought to quell.
Of late, though, Arkandel has had good reasons, and I trust in his judgment.
Personally? I don't really care if the Hog Pit goes. I don't have the time or the energy to muster up a Raptor-like takedown, and reading what sometimes gets flung over there is more tedious than entertaining. For the past few years, I've had more fun, entertainment, and lively discussion outside of it. I might miss it, but I don't think so.
The number of threads devoted to Arx, and how much fun people are having there.
I'm not even trying to be ironic.
It's good to see people enjoying a game. Especially a non-WoD game.
