Posts made by Ghost

@devrex Fair enough! I don't think your stance is incorrect. I will say, however, that the number of instances where I was able to RP a "romance" and have it "just be writing" is far outnumbered by the times that it made me uncomfortable for a number of reasons. Off the top of my head I've...

• Ended up chatting OOC/RL via texts/phone calls with someone I had an IC relationship with who sent inappropriate things to my phone. When I asked to take a break, they asked "don't I get a say in this?" and "angry about always being chosen second" (in this case, to my RL wife) and then proceeded to belittle me as a "user" and "manipulative person" to a large group of fellow MUers
• Got angry at me for bringing something up via RP that was a trigger for their personal marriage issues
• Husband would text me to get online to TS with his wife, who I later found out was a cuckold guy, and then when I tried to exit the IC relationship they banned me from the game
• Once got VERY personal with me via pages and when I tried to escape the situation messaged me that "they identify with their character, and thus when I hurt their character (by ending the IC romance) I have hurt them, and therefore would be using IC means to hurt me.
• Was harassed multiple times via pages about my kinks, wanting to see pictures of me, asking me personal details, all so that they could be included in RP
• Pages being asked "what they did that was wrong" to not be taken as an IC romance, and then followed-up with pages about how they're lonely
• Pages about how hot a scene was, touching themselves, etc. In many of these cases I'd then take a step back from the RP and it would then turn into some kind of OOC blowup
• Pages angry about RPing with other players who they suspected to be "sluts" oocly via pages
• Constant interrogations about who I am, who I've RPed with, who I played at which game, "NEEDING TO FEEL SAFE", not being observed, making sure scenes weren't logged, etc.

All in all, I think there's a certain population of people who are truly able to compartmentalize the difference between "simply writing an IC romance" and it being some sort of pseudonym for personal fantasy fulfillment. The end result felt more to me like a "pseudo-dating" environment where TS was called "simply writing" but often seemed much more personal and OOC-desire driven more than anything. I've met a LOT of bored husbands/wives whose home lives weren't fulfilling, and have dealt with a lot of uncomfortable attachment issues.

How I think it would look like if it were, in fact, simply "just writing".

• Safety, jealousy, personal information, and needing to know a lot about the OOC writers involved wouldn't be nearly as important as "simple writing ability"
• Privacy wouldn't be a concern at all, because it would be written FOR WRITING'S SAKE and thus okay for anyone to view. In fact, the logs would be posted where others could read for enjoyment's sake
• People would discuss an outline for the scene idea, write it, then post it as a project, and not a multi-hour, repeated delve into kinks and emotional commitments
• If a writing partner needed to cut out or their "character" cheated with another "character", there would be no anger. It would be taken as a literary direction and not as an attack on the player (or result in attacks on the player whose character strayed).

Anyway. It's just....interesting to me.

@macha Hey you dont gotta explain yourself. I think you're going to find that that pressure to "capitulate with our collective stance" is just a pain in the ass, and once you start negotiating it it'll never ever end.

Counter-opinion:

There were different themes in behavior that I saw leading up to the bannings, with some people being far more disrespectful and venomous in their approach than others. Heck, I was even DM'ed to be informed what a slimy piece of shit I was, though in jest I was doing a little tongue-in-cheek trolling of the situation, myself.

If the focus of the forum going forward is to try to be respectful and positive, then some of those entitled personalities are best left off at that new forum they made (where when I was linked to it already saw personal attacks, fuck-marry-kill lists with actual people being listed as kill, etc). This forum isn't a paid-for service where users are entitled to getting what they want, nor is it required to maintain a level of "trust" even when "trust" is often mistaken for "doing what we say we want or else".

I recommend people who don't like it to let it go and glomp about it at that other place that's going to return to the same toxic behavior patterns.

@bloodangel

...if I didn't know better I'd accidentally assume that response was meant to be an insult of some kind, but was done so under the guise of a gif to avoid using one's actual words...and thus potentially be held responsible for those words.

I think this is pretty necro'd and if you look back you can see some of my previous responses, but I still feel the same.

IC Romance/TS is often approached on an OOC level as "dating and cybersex", and I find the duality of it all to be very...interesting. Sure, some treat it just like "writing" but the desire for privacy, need to know OOC/RL details about the fellow writer, the number of personal explosions related to IC romance and/or "breakups", etc are all quite telling on a psychoanalysis level. It's very messy terrain and people can talk as big a game as they want that it's "just writing fiction" but I feel the actual truth is something southeast of that simple quote.

@testament said in Review of Recent Bans:

I'm sorry. This is wrong. I have a point to try and post as little as possible, but this is morally wrong.

I'm sure they can discuss it in infinitum at that new forum

You know, I just wanted to take a moment to say that I think the new policies regarding avoiding personal attacks will do everyone better in the long run, and are probably exactly what the hobby needs.

On the Hog Pit
I never really did agree that a place like the Hog Pit was necessary or "for the better". In fact, I think the concept of it was a lot like "The Purge". SURE give everyone a place where they can murder and commit crimes and it'll get it out of their system. The end result, I think, was that it normalized venom and incentivized people to attack one another for others' entertainment, to gain ground with fellow bullies, and to take one's personal issues out on victims for sport.

On going forward
It occurs to me that for YEARS there hasn't been a real gathering for people who MU to get together and be a COMMUNITY that actually enforced...respectful behavior. Sure, the Hog Pit was "opt-in" but it was easily the most popular place on the forum and bleed-over was constant. Every other day it seemed a topic needed to be moved to the Hog Pit because people were being nasty.

In short, ACTUALLY having a place where people can gather as a community to be respectful and (dare I say) neighborly will do people good in the long run. People were -afraid- to join MSB because of the venom, and now with the new policies and attitude in place I think you'll end up getting a lot of the nicer, more constructive types to feel welcome.

Piece of shit internet people who consider themselves hilarious (yet noble, caring safe space) people to bag on someone for having a cause, but never stop to consider the reason for the cause could be related to personal trauma.

Those people can go fuck themselves.

I feel this is a fair response.

No Battletech MU has lasted long. Other media including Mechwarrior online, MW5, MegaMek, and games on VTT are thriving just fine. If you want to play Battletech or the Mechwarrior RPG I recommend you do those.

The modern MUer seems to prefer roleplay that doesn't involve technical systems, doesn't include risky pass/fail combat, and always seems to default to relationship/TS roleplay involving coffee or bar roleplay. Combat and PVP are avoided and the whole point behind Battletech is combat and pvp.

Why put in months of your life working a new system to try to recreate a system that already exists BETTER elsewhere when the majority playerbase would use the space for the same thing they've been doing across their previous 45 games they'd played, only with differing variations on theme?

Grab the # of people interested in filling out dots on mech sheets, use existing resources, and then use something simple like Discord for ongoing sideRP. Battletech is for the joy of punching through shoulder armor, getting that crit, and igniting the Trebuchet's shoulder LRM stores that blows off the entire side of the mech.

FYI.

Emmet Otter's Jugband Christmas is on Amazon Prime. If you haven't seen it you owe it to yourself.

@arkandel https://nypost.com/2021/11/30/nicolas-cage-to-play-dracula-in-new-monster-film-renfield/

Cage has been cast as fucking Dracula in an upcoming movie/show called Renfield.

This will inevitably be good tv.

@jeshin said in The Desired Experience:

@devrex

My desired experience is to escape the burdens of a dissatisfying work, family, and sex life to replace it with simulated romances that I carefully craft to fulfill my emotional needs. Then, should I find disappointment will attack it as a personal slight against me and then obsess over needing to find "safe" roleplay, which means pigeonholing my online activities to players and roleplay situations that will fulfill these needs, but do so under the guise of it being their fault and not mine.

TLDR - Roleplay is Escapism

Haha I didn't think this would happen. Cheers, bruh

@kestrel said in Paying for a MU*?:

At this point, I kind of feel like I should be paid to play someone else's MU*.

That's the spirit.

You know, given that most MUs rely on higher numbers of people/bits logged in to encourage people to try the game, at the very least even the most unwanted player on those games should have some sort of sign-spinner salary.

@faraday Agreed on the tip jar, but I feel an entry fee at the door is the line. If access is locked behind a paywall, even if it's called a tip jar, it's arguable in court.

I'd like to add...

MU has been using unauthorized source materials for decades. I heard once a Matrix MU got a c&d from WB, and know that Blood of Dragons dbags tried to get GRRM to shut down any GoT MU that wasn't theirs. Simply put, the MU community has been lucky to not draw the Eye of Mordor over the years in terms of unauthorized use.

• Many WoD games have built into the code proprietary systems and information. Same goes for Shadowrun, Star Wars, and other licensed game systems that either have the information within the books baked into the code or offered on the websites.
• A lot of artwork, images, and other copyrights/trademarks are in use in game wikis, including use of actor's images without their (or the photographer's) consent.

I'm of the opinion that the only reason the MU community hasn't seen lawyers kicking in doors and shutting down games is because the community's saving grace has been that there is no money being exchanged. In fact, there are risks the IP holders take by not acting when their IPs are monetized without authorization. Currently, the cost of SEEKING damages probably outweighs the rewards, but if word gets around that money is changing hands you'll see a lot more c&d, especially for WoD products who are very aware of the MU community.

When money enters the equation everything changes.

• Open source code bases usually remain so on the basis that they aren't monetized. If you charge for a game using a code base you didn't write you could be in an actionable position. It would be wrong to monetize an FS3 game without @faraday OK'ing it or getting a cut, but even if fara didn't care that doesn't mean other coders wont.
• If your content isn't original (d&d, star wars, world of darkness) and you're monetizing it, you're actionable
• Use PB's? Because every player and npc PB is now a monetized use of that person's image without their consent.

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. MU is a text based amateur quasi-fan fiction writing hobby with slight gaming elements with less than 200 identifiably active players. The amount of money required to monetize a game isn't worth the amount that would be earned, and the likelihood that some jilted player will take things to extreme lengths for a refund (small claims?) is high.

That game VaultGirl or whoever was running where they were taking $$$ donations for extra xp, gear, etc was using Fallout's IP. They're lucky they didn't get a tap from a lawyer because when the MU doesn't exchange money it's a cease and desist, but when money is traded the question of how much of that the IP holder is entitled to comes into play.

@cobalt The feelings of isolation, alienation, and impostor syndrome that come with this hobby and it's insane social constructs are normal. Almost every person who I've talked to who stopped playing MUs and stopped caring about the 'social scene' are living much more fulfilling day to day lives with a lot less drama and feelings of low self esteem. Myself included.

Realizing that people are ultimately replaceable and years of effort amounts to nothing kept is key. Everyone's life deserves to build and grow. This hobby is just...treading water and calling "had less drama that one week" as a victory. After years I really have come to the conclusion that the amount of time people spend in this particular hobby takes a heavy impact on their emotional and social health. Many who I talk to who quit the games agree that even socializing with non-MUers is strange after coming out of the cave; that it took them a while to properly communicate outside of the hobby due to the echo chamber impact to their social skills.

Take this as an opportunity to get out there and create something, grow, and connect with regular people without these extreme social abnormalities. It's HEALTHY and it feels good.

I recommend:

• Online D&D/Etc groups over discord
• Online writing clubs
• Take up stuff like disc golf or a tactile hobby like knitting
• Stop watching the news so regularly if you haven't yet. Little headlines are fine but all of the propaganda on Facebook, CNN. FOX, etc is designed to cause emotional impact. In some way this stuff is poisonous.

BE HAPPY. ENJOY IT.

@mr-johnson said in Project Gridlock (Temp Name) Matrix style mush:

Effectively what this means is that the Matrix world or The Grid is a world of darkness style world with players taking the role of vampires changelings mages excetra as normal but there's a second grid of the real world players can wake up into and jack in and out of the grid.

Fun fact.

My RL existence is that of a brain wearing bone armor and a meat suit who jacks into the internet to play vampires and werewolves.

Non-sarcastic comment:

I would recommend a theme other than "normal people who connect to an online gaming session that hosts an exhaustively huge WoD base set in New England 4.0" and maybe go with something Sci fi or other than a meta version of what the players are actually doing in real life (people who jack into MU server to play WoD).

Because I would hate for it know that this exists:

PLAYERS who connect to ONLINE GAME to play CHARACTERS WHO ARE PLAYERS connecting to an ANOTHER ONLINE GAME to play CHARACTER-PLAYER OWNED VAMPIRE CHARACTERS who TS and then disconnect to fight with each other and act out being players who have technically IC/OOC drama about online "relationships" and then disconnect to fight with each other about their online characters on the real MSB who fight with each other about their 2nd level IC vampires who do sex stuff.

OR I totally want to join and reopen WORA in the first layer human-space so that people can disconnect from the vampire space and have technically IC flame wars as assumed OOC personas.

Brain hurts now. Getting out of here.

@astrid said in Dare I ask...:

by trying to do everything for everyone?

Sidebar.

If there's a MU out there that will do the weeds on my front lawn, lemme know.