Posts made by Ganymede

@Apollonius said:

DA:I needed to really hit it out of the park and it was more like two strikes and four balls to walk to first.

It did, and BioWare needs to seriously consider the strength of its stories over the mechanics of its gaming. I would have gladly taken another DA:O or DA2 if it had a storyline as compelling as the ME series, Uncharted, or The Last of Us. Sadly, it did not.

Investment in your stories pays off in huge dividends. The most memorable games are not the ones that have the neatest play options, unless you're creating a simulation game like X-COM.

@Apollonius said:

tl;dr Sorry for the thread necro, DA:I was okay.

I hated DA:I. And not just because it was clearly made for higher-gen consoles, yet Bioware made and marketed a buggy version for lower-gen consoles.

Oh, sure, there were parts of it I liked. I liked the crafting, I liked the open world, and I liked the ability to explore. I got killed quite often tackling Rifts that I wasn't ready for.

But it wasn't a good game. The Knight-Enchanter build was OP'd to the point where tackling the greatest dragons was a meh activity. The NPCs were boring, one-sided, or pathetic. I would gladly take Fenris from DA2's story over just about any of the DA:I NPCs -- except for Dorian's, maybe.

It was an anti-climactic, disappointing installment for a wonderful world of politics and intrigue. It really opened up the "dark fantasy" world to me. I just wish it was more polished from a story standpoint.

It should be noted that I played The Last of Us after this game. So, no prejudice from that.

@Sundown said:

I only let the game know through skype friends and the grapevine, in bursts of "I'm ok! I have RL! I will return!" I just had to say, fuck it, RL takes priority here.

Actually, @Coin and @Derp, this follows what I said numerous times previously. All you have to do is tell someone you aren't going to be around due to RL circumstances. That's it.

This really isn't hard to do.

RfK's policy is draconian almost by necessity. Staking or sudden departure does not cure a ghoul or thrall of their addiction to their regnant's vitae; in fact, in character, those PCs ought to be chasing after said vampire, desperate for their blood and affection. That's the problem with Vampire games.

There are likely many ghoul players that are happy with the "finality of disappearance" policy, whatever that is. I agree that the policy could be better defined.

@HelloRaptor said:

Yeah, why should anybody care about links between obesity and heart disease, when we're all going to die eventually anyway? It's not like we give people shit for smoking over the cancer related health risks, right?

I concur. And I still smoke.

Anything in excess isn't good for you. I think the conversation ought not be "do something to stay alive longer!", but "stop telling others what they ought to be."

@Tyche said:

Obviously with the head tax, there will be those who cannot pay their fair share. They could be exempted on condition they give up the right to decide on how that money is spent. So instead of a head tax, we'll change it to a poll tax. It's going to put a much larger burden on the rest of us though, perhaps closer to $20000 a year. But that sounds like a fair exchange. I could go with that.

Did I fucking stutter?

For a professed conservative, you put up some awfully stupid ideas. Poll taxes are anathema to the concept of reining in the government's power.

@Misadventure said:

Does the Off Screen System allow you to upgrade an areas economy, safety, stability, emergency services, quality of life, education etc?

Actually, yes. You'd have to tailor it to whatever system you happen to use, though, but the concept is sound.

@Songtress said:

I suppose for me in a Fantasy MU* I don't want to play a brutal, harsh theme that has no hope of changing because my character and others work for it.

You need a system that will allow you to influence an area, similar to the Off-Screen System employed by Kingsmouth. That way, players can enact immediate, positive, lasting change, even if the circumstances around them are dire.

@Bargle said:

If a game is trying to have any type of feudal politics going on, I'd think some type of family tree would be pretty necessary.

Although primogeniture was used often, feudalism can still occur in the absence thereof. What matters is a line of succession.

They aren't cute and fuzzy like Bastet.

Now I want to make a Khan named "Hobbes."

@Coin said:

@Thisnameistaken
Bury them.

In litigation.

They probably need to give you notice to vacate. And then start eviction proceedings thereafter.

If you're leaving in 10 days, business acumen suggests leaving the situation alone, and deducting your pro-rated amount from the paycheck and/or security deposit.

But, hey, who am I to tell some M.B.A. from Fraggle Rock U. how to do their job? (A person with two graduate degrees that taught useful knowledge, that's who.)

@Derp said:

So if that's the reason that staff are claiming, then I call that some lazy bullshit, right there.

No, it isn't. I'm not staff, and there's no official policy on point, as far as I can tell.

All I'm saying is that I understand why.

Maybe I just hate the fact that some shits think it's okay to leave others in a lurch. You fucking pricks, you can't send a fucking message or e-mail? Like, holy shit, how fucking childish and irresponsible is that, especially if your idling isn't due to an emergency?

(This is mostly due to some RL things happening right now. For real.)

If you're going to go, go and don't look back. If you're not sure about coming back, let someone know. If you have an emergency, try to let someone know, and, if that fails, get a friend to lend a hand ... and if that fails, and your emergency is so sudden that you can't pop an e-mail out in two weeks, I'll bet you have other things to worry about than your PC, whose demise can easily be flipped around if you come and ask.

Anyhow, I can understand why people are up in arms. I don't think it's a big deal.

@Coin said:

Because the person might come back and might want to play that character and because there are other, less final options.

Then you can let staff know this, right? And you can find a reason to ICly go away for a bit.

Everyone needs a break. I know of several players that stepped away for a vacation, and then came back. This is permitted.

But if you up and depart with no warning or word, it is difficult, as staff, to figure out what to do. Putting a player on the shelf is an option, but it is not necessarily a fair one if other players are counting on that player to remain active. Terminating that character's ability to come back, by policy or otherwise, is one way to ensure that the active players can go on with their lives.

In a way, this is necessitated by the Off-Stage System implemented on the game. If you let people sit on territories indefinitely, there will be a problem as new blood comes in. Removing characters permanently ensure that territories remain in the hands of active, participating players.

I can understand why the policy is controversial, but I understand and support it in context.

@Coin said:

Except this policy apparently applies to people who idle out, too, which does not in any way constitute having unequivocally given up the character.

Why doesn't it?

@Tempest said:

You don't have to tell staff what you're doing ICly if you're playing day-to-day, why does an absence require an IC explanation to prevent staff from killing your bit? Every MUSH ever seems to have done just fine with a freezer.

Nothing irritates me more than a PC that just goes idle, especially when that PC is intimately tied into others' IC lives and plots. If you cannot be bothered to drop a message in two weeks' time, then, no, I have little sympathy for you.

If you are suddenly knocked out for whatever reason, e-mail is not difficult to send to the people at Kingsmouth.

Any scenario I can think of where a player cannot do either of the two above courtesy steps leads to the conclusion that the player has bigger problems than the discontinuation of their fictional character.

@Arkandel said:

That's one of the stupidest policies I've ever heard of. Wow. Talk about penalizing your players for having a life.

I would like to think that if you have the social skills to have a life that you would be nice enough to drop your staff a line telling them that your PC has gone back to Bumfuck, Iowa for a little bit. Because that's all you need to do.

@Arkandel

Dude, check out this video, and tell me if you want to go waltzing around the mountains.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUY9U4Y4SP4

@thebird said:

Definitely a ninja.

Add to this the fact that they live on mountain slopes and can stalk rocky crags without losing their footing or making a sound, it would be more appropriate to say that ninjas are lame-ass snow leopards.

I'm pinging and reviving this thread again because ... well, because. I don't crow often about games, but when I do, I do so like a person possessed.

I'm still looking for a crew. Chat with me (PM, whatever) if you're interested in joining up with a small, but very active group of vampires. Acolyte-concepts definitely preferred. More information about the game can be found here: http://kingsmouth.info.

@Tyche said:

@Misadventure said:

Though determining a fair share is difficult.

It's easy. Everyone pays the same amount. Sounds fair to me.

The purpose of taxes is to pay for government programs. Those programs do not distribute benefits equally by purpose or design. Fair tax is only fair if you haven't an education or understanding of basic capitalist principles.