Best posts made by Ghost

I've probably said this a dozen times, a dozen ways on different threads, but I think the ultimate killer of faction based games is the "never-ending stalemate" factor. Protagonist players don't want to lose their chars to PC death. Antagonist players don't want to lose their chars to PC death. It becomes two opposing forces circling each other and...nothing really changes unless staff railroads something.

So I guess the thought behind this idea is to find creative ways to get players to loosen their death grip on their characters, provide some hard-earned IC victories, and suspend the disbelief that the dual tommy-gun and katana wielding villain/hero survived another nuclear detonation, got away, and the player base will inevitably groan going into next time...knowing that there's only a 1% chance they'll be allowed to defeat the bad guy.

@Lotherio $10,000.00 a week on cocaine makes your "Convince Ghost to accept you as a sensei" pitch generally convincing.

I think the genre of the game applies, too. In Game of Thrones, being the victim of a villain or facing justice for being one, usually isn't a pretty sight. Whereas Darth Vader's TIE fighter can get beaned and float off into space "CURSE YOU, LUKE SKYWALKERRRRrrrr...."

How this could be implemented highly revolves around the IC stakes of the game. WoD, Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, etc would require a lot more creativity to determine what kinds of defeat don't equate to death, but if you look closely these genres DO have villains that are defeated, evolve, return, etc.

@Bananerz That's the wooorst.

A few weekends ago my Barb critted for like...8 damage

It was about as underwhelming as the Green Lantern movie

@surreality said in Cybersphere Nostalgia Thread:

I was there around... '97 I think?

I was a hopeless clueless newbie and highly dumb. I was Mayor Mike, the six-armed stripper chick that ended up elected when the guy who was always mayor didn't feel like doing it for a term and it was open. I promptly ended up having to leave the game due to RL (my grandmother, who raised me, was dying ) but not before the character got married to someone whose street name she knew -- but not his real name.

She did not realize his name was Edgar Caine, and that she was now...

...Michael Caine.

Sometimes I love this hobby for the accidental hilarious weirdness.

Shouldve had a baby named Myko.

Myko Caine.

My cocaine.

#JOKES

TMW you find out you may have been on the wrong side of something you were once neutral on, and that by remaining neutral you have been inadvertently allowing someone to get away with something horrid.

@GirlCalledBlu Gotcha gotcha. I've never seen the TV show so the show setting that up makes more sense to me. Danke

Its so crazy coincidental that super important things happened to Jesus on days revered by Pagans of the Roman Empire, who Constantine wanted to convert.

socrazycoincidental

@Coin said in The Shame Game:

@Ghost said in The Shame Game:

But let's be clear here: The Hog Pit isn't about 'shaming' people in this neo-pop-psychology 'OH MY GOD STOP TRIGGERING ME!' millennial sense. Set ALL of that pop psychology for big bucks aside.

The glory of the internet, and in forums, is that people cannot be silenced mid-flight. On MSB, you can put your thoughts out without --

I'mma let you finish, but I don't really agree with your opening statement, which means the rest of this is poop, which means I'm not going to read it, effectively interrupting and disregarding everything else you wrote.

Just FYI.

I didn't read anything after "Imma let you finish" because you triggered me and I'm secretly a Swift fan.

But I won't admit that I read all of it, even if I did, because I don't want you to feel any validation from your post.

#boardtacticsexplained

@Lotherio said in The Hockey Thread:

@Ghost said in The Hockey Thread:

How the EFF did my Coyotes end up leading the Pacific division? Wow.

Because the Oilers bubble burst and they're heading back to playing how they were predicted to play at the beginning of the season. Merry Christmas Phoenix fans.

Sad part? The Yotes aren't getting much traction here in AZ. They never have.

The Yotes account for a very SMALL amount of merchandise in any athletic store, hat store, team shop, etc. You dont even see Yotes gear at grocery stores. Very few mugs, posters, etc. It's all ASU, Diamondbacks, Cardinals, or Suns.

I'd hate to see them go, but would rather see them in a city that loves them. It would be frustrating to see them suddenly get all of this PLAYOFF FRENZY attention (or even a cup) knowing that most of Phoenix would be like: "Hey that's great, but I don't care about hockey"

@VulgarKitten said in The Shame Game:

@surreality Good lord. That needed a TL;DR that wasn't a lame meme. Trying too hard.

GOD DAMNIT STOP SHAMING HER!

"Shaming is lethal." - Brene Brown.

Dr. Brené Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work. She has spent the past thirteen years studying vulnerability, courage, worthiness, and shame.

Brené is the author of three #1 New York Times Bestsellers: Rising Strong, Daring Greatly and The Gifts of Imperfection.

She is also the Founder and CEO of The Daring Way and COURAGEworks – an online learning community that offers eCourses, workshops, and interviews for individuals and organizations ready for braver living, loving, and leading.

Brené’s 2010 TEDx Houston talk, The Power of Vulnerability, is one of the top five most viewed TED talks in the world, with over 25 million viewers.

Brené lives in Houston with her husband, Steve, and their two children, Ellen and Charlie.

Confession.

I'm stressing the fuck out about this CISSP exam.

I've got a 1000 page book filled with test questions and material, done about 40 hours of online videos, and the test requires you hit a 70% or better in 100 to 150 questions. From 8 months ago to now I've watched my pre-test scores go from the 60s to the 80s. Haven't hit 90 yet but OMG WHO THE FUCK CAN REMEMBER THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN NIST800-64, ISO12007, and ISO12207 and THAT AES128 uses 10 rounds of encryption and AES256 uses 14. I imagine most people in the IT world have about 30-45% of those "number and acronym salad" terms memorized and use other resources for the stuff they forget. (Which one was 10 again? Oh yeah, 128.)

Danger zone? Every. Reddit. Thread. Says stuff like "oh the test is nothing like the pre-tests on any sites and this resource (one I didn't buy) is the best."

Probably going to cram hard on this for the next week or so, continue test runs, flash cards, etc. The test is not as crazy as some others, but what it does is that it will seek to run you through 100 questions in 3 hours with the following caveats:

1. If it detects with 95% accuracy that there's no way you can pass 70%, it will stop you early. YOU SUCK. GO HOME LOSER
2. Minimum 100 questions, all weighted with secret weights. 25 of the questions aren't scored and are designed to collect aptitude information. So the acronym salad stuff may or may not be weighted more by questionably (or more immediately) critical concepts like evidence gathering, core integrity concepts, and infosec logical thought questions.
3. If you hit question 101 (it hasn't stopped you because it detects you may still not hit 70%) you have until question 150 to get to 70%

However, if I pass I have the highest sought infosec certification in the current IT world and become a member of ISC(2). So...that would be sweet, right?

Anyway. Sigh. No pressure. The time is coming.

Replying to myself and DOUBLE POST: BECAUSE FREEDOM!!!

...and it's my God (and Ronald Reagan) given right to derail this currently NOT derailed Shame Game thread with talk about global politics and societies with a short diatribe about how, as an American, I'm getting reallyreallyreallyreallyreallyreallyreallyreally sick of waiting for other countries to talk about how great America is, so I'll do it for them...

Totally not derailing the Shame Game thread with politics.

#Sexy drawn-on abs on birdmen.

#ShameGame

Edit: Tennyson, could you delete your comment above mine? I didn't think you were gonna post so soon and it's delegitimizing my "DOUBLE POST" thing. It makes me look like a douche.

@Tyche Well, truth is the problem with degrees in IT is that a 40 year old who got a BS in Computer Science right after high school got a whole lotta training on Windows NT/2000.

Certs answer the problem of maintaining education that is current. You can get your A+, Security+, etc, but if you got your Security+ 10 years ago, it was based on tech that was prevalent at the time. A lot of certs are "One and done."

So the question becomes "How can a cert guarantee a certain level of CURRENT competence?" as well as "How can I prove that my cert PROVES my current level of competence?"

ISC(2) and some other certification boards are starting to answer that with certs that are more expensive to obtain, include vetting for experience within the industry, yearly dues into a bonding-type organization that you can get kicked out of for misbehaving, and requirements on yearly training/study to upkeep your cert.

It's really no different than board certification for doctors, pharmacists, etc. I dont feel that it's a racket at all, because to POSSESS and MAINTAIN a cert with a reputable certification board is worth its weight, and will currently put you ahead of people with Bachelor degrees.

Good luck, you guys.

@Auspice said in RL things I love:

@Ghost said in RL things I love:

Yesterday my SO asked me to help her clean up a room and set it up as a craft room. A bunch of boxes got set in the hallway. We just moved, so we have a bunch of weird stuff in wrong packaging, like an Amazon box filled with hand towels.

I see a taped box for a computer monitor. A 24" computer monitor. I didn't remember packing that.

Me: "Hey, babe, what's packed in this computer monitor box? Do I need to unpack it?"

Her: "...shit. Merry Christmas. Guess I'm gonna have to find you another xmas present, now."

Moral #1 If you're hiding Christmas gifts, remember that when asking your SO to help move stuff around.

Moral #2: If you call it out, you might get an extra present out of it!

she shoulda told you it was her luchadore costumes and if you were a good boy she'd break it out next weekend

I KNOW she should have.

She could have also been "oh that's my old grandma's stuff, put it in the closet" and I wouldn't have known the wiser. Like a dopey dog I would have just gone "durrrr okay, that monitor looks sweet we should get one!"

@Kanye-Qwest said in Game Death:

I can tell a hell of a good story with 3-5 people, but yeah if your goal is "a thriving game" that's probably not a good indicator.

True, but anyone who's been at this hobby a while can know that all it takes is ONE weird person or ooc issue to smear up a group of ten. When you have hundreds of players, the concept of "okay, this person sucks, I'll rp with someone else" is a viable option. Four players tend to tell the same kinds of stories over and over again, too, and sometimes those differing perspectives keep rp from going stale. So do you want a small, close-knit game - where if you have any issue or want other storytelling styles - your only option is to leave, or a populous game with multiple opportunities if the first opportunity doesn't pan out?

A populous, active game is attractive and shows that the game is doing well and it's worth the effort to try. Nothing sucks more than going thru chargen, falling in love with a char concept, putting energy into it, only to find out that...eh...rp happens when we can be bothered.

When I'm shopping around for a game, I look for 3 things:

• Number of players
• Number of players RPing in more than a 1on1 capacity during my prime availability hours
• Evidence that plots are being run regularly (I.e. events, event boards, active bullets surrounding in-game happenings)

I feel a lack of these three things contributes to new players choosing to pass on a game, and thus leaving players are not replaced, which contributes to low population. Population loss is a snowball effect. Less people to rp with or plots dropped due to players leaving and no new chars/players to pick up those lost opportunities? More people leave. Faster. Game death.

Follow-up.

The JCVD picture in the bathroom is a hit. 2/3 people who visit my new house are like: "It is so weird but interesting peeing while Jean-Claude Van Damme is gazing romantically at you."

But even better?

My SO's "best bitch" came over yesterday came over yesterday and brought over her 18 year old daughter, who came out of the bathroom asking who that guy in the picture is.

So it became gif-time as we showed her the splits, split kick, split ballpunch, punch the snake in its face, the "JCVD dance", and regaled her about "The Muscles from Brussels" and his $10k/week cocaine habit.

Between last weekend's house party and this weekend, I've had to open up that JCVD OR JADEN SMITH thread a few times.

I would play a Star Trek MU, especially if in the newly envisioned universe. I would also play a GotG themed Marvel game.

As to the idea of a pay to play MU?

Fuck that. Fuck that so much.

It seems half of the time I play a game, there are elements of staff and other players who cannot be expected to be ethical for free. The one saving grace that makes me eyeroll INSTEAD of getting angry at them for being unethical cunts is that it's free. It's not as if I was paying for a service and they took my money, pulled unethical OOC bullshit, and ran. I would say easily a third of the people who run MUs shouldn't be trusted with simple, free, fair ethics, let alone anything resembling monetary transactions.

Point in case: Zero from New Jedi Order was taking PayPal "donations" to boost people's characters, run scenes for them, etc. Like a pay to play mmorpg environment. The end result is people complained about paying for things and never receiving them, and his lack of grace turned to a lot of badmouthing his critics.

So. Yeah. Let's never change the landscape of this corner of the hobby from "for us by us" to "money making venture".

@Macha said in The Work Thread:

@Arkandel At first I read Jenkins/Ansible as Jensen Ackles and wondered wtf that was doing in a tech conversation

He works with SAML

That's some high quality nerd meta humor there.