Posts made by Ghost

First..."friends" is a subjective term. To those who rely on deep, in-person contact it's not likely that they would describe online friends as actual friends, but to the person with mostly online friends they find those relationships to be qualifying friendships. So...po-tay-toe, po-tah-to.

Myself being a person with a good number of in-person friendships and having been a player in the MU community for years, I can say that I wouldn't describe many of my "Mu community friendships as actual friendships.

I can only think of a small number of times where crossing from text to voice wasn't an absolute nightmare. I think most "MU friends" are best described as "Acquaintances who symbiotically need each other's presence to validate their hobby and online social life who want to keep rules on how and when the acquaintanceship crosses over into the real world; they will likely not follow you to the real world should you choose to leave the hobby."

Just being frank, here. While a number of the people in the hobby are friendly with each other, be it to gossip or roleplay or TS or to assume mutual defense to keep creepers or shitty roleplayers out...the vast majority of them wouldn't drive chicken soup to your house if you were on your deathbed. The majority will not want you to have access to their home, spouses, or children. The people here are predominantly strangers to each other and while there are exclusions to every concept...the "friendship" boundary is placed on involvement in the hobby.

Which, to me, is not a friendship.

@tinuviel said in Roster Characters & WoD?:

@ghost said in Roster Characters & WoD?:

I don't see this happening in the MU community, though.

Of course not, some folks hate the idea of giving their email address to games. Besides any measure of proof of identity can be falsified enough to pass a bouncer relatively easily. It wouldn't take much to fool game staff.

That's why I like my idea of "people need to be vouched for and if you vouch for them and they turn out to be a fucked up person it reflects on you." Granted, I doubt people would be willing to stake themselves like this considering how tumultuous and paranoid the hobby can be. People tend to go from "best person ever" to "card carrying sociopath" in 1.5 seconds when they try to "break up" with a TS partner. I still don't see people being willing to apply risk to themselves, though.

All I know is two things:

1. If I ran a group/gaming space and had a problem with creepers coming in, I'd do this. I'd make the guest list "implicit deny" and like anything from the Masonic Order, country club, sex club, or a book club I'd hold people who "vouch" for others to their word. Staking people's involvement against "vouching" forces people to make better choices when nominating people for membership. Same concept applies in giving your recommendation for a new-hire at a job.
2. I've surpassed my allotted number of posts to MSB for the year and am going back to haunting. Hope all is well, Tin. Take care.

@Tinuviel @icanbeyourmuse Both good points, so really I think the only solution (since setting up SSL would be a bitch) would be to fall back on old-fashioned "gatekeeping" methods that clubs, parties, and other events fall back on. I don't see this happening in the MU community, though.

@mietze said in Roster Characters & WoD?:

I kind of wonder though how one would track creepers/abusive people

Since most people who run games won't take the time/money to properly do SSL (and because the technology is literally decades behind modern standards) there's only one real option.

1. Auto-registration of new users needs to be shut off.
2. All users need to be tied to a federated/third party ID system (AresID, etc)
3. (most important) New/unknown players will need to be vouched for, and if "unknown" player turns out to be a repeat offender creep the player who vouched for them will be banned/punished/given 1 warning.

If you leverage people's attachment to the hobby with helping keep it safe, you'd probably see a "safer" (though I hate that word) environment rather quickly. Either way there's no way to keep out anonymous creepers, pedophiles, and abusers without either 1) putting in a security measure on the door (which means putting a gate in front of "walk-in" users or 2) requiring more money be spent to run the games. If random "person who was TSing with the creeper who knew they had a bad reputation but they seemed fine at the time" understood that there could be ramifications for vouching for the person, then maybe they'd think twice.

@ganymede said in Roster Characters & WoD?:

@grayson

I r samuel haight cat.

+10,000 points for the Samuel Haight callout.

The idea of WoD roster characters is only slightly less humorous to me than the idea of WoD roster players.

"Looks like 'person who makes the same rich guy Benedict Cumberbatch character' just freed up for application. Just a reminder: We still have three appable 'barely literate bdsm rp fetishist' player slots open."

@faraday No I'm just tired and theorizing.

It sounds feasible to only apply IPv6 to internal devices and then use NAT to route to them? I dunno. I'm tired and possibly over complicating things.

The router itself would have an external IP address as the focal point of connections exiting the network. Each device on the network typically would have a device on it assigned one of the typical internal IP addresses 192.168.x.x, but I was trying to brainstorm why a connection would believe it didnt have an ipv4 address and here is where my brain went...

• Router has ipv4 address
• Router assigns device an IPv6 address
• NAT at the firewall level could be failing to route return packets to the device?

I dunno. Like I said I'm tired and was wondering why a device wouldn't have any sort of ipv4 recognized address (if even to route to) because a hard locked IPv6 config seems like a nightmare. There are typical simple home networking configs, then there are "dickin around with the network" configs.

@faraday Yeah to be more clear I meant for the MU client connections. The web portal connection would make port22 a less likely culprit, but if MU client fails to connect, as well, it could be related to a block.

Still find it weird that no IPv4 exists. Forgive me I'm sitting in bed pretty tired here, but could the router be providing all internal devices an IPv6 address and then trying to use some sort of NATing that's confusing the whole thing? Definitely sounds like whoever set up that router/network tightened up security a bit.

I could never connect to MUs at my favorite coffee house because disabling incoming telnet connections on port 22 is standard firewall security these days. Telnet is a massive security risk.

The IPv6 thing is weird. I'd suspect that first and if it still fails I would suspect a telnet block.

Someone once said they wanted to open a Tokyo Ghoul-themed game. That should have happened. That woulda been fetch.

@Coin Here's hoping God collected him using his feet rather than his hands, right? (Gallows humor reference to the infamous "Hand of God" goal)

Actual Cyberpunk
Battletoads
Cows of Moo Mesa
Captain Power
Farscape

@HelloProject Connection has a subjective focal point. I get the same stuff, too. I know I have people around me all of the time but there are times where I feel that maybe I'm not as close to them as I used to feel I was. When that happens I know a lot of it is in my own head, so don't let it be a thread into a deeper depression. It's totally normal-type feeling for the "quarantine era".

Right up to quarantine I was a house party every month, in-person gaming, coffee house hangouts after work. I'm a social motherfucker, so having that go from 5-10 things going on a week to not seeing these people for months at a time really laid into me. I was arranging movie hangouts over Discord and noticed that when I'm not driving it no one really speaks up and tries to organize it on their own, which made me feel somewhat annoyed; I get sick of being default "MC". But motivation these days is low and depression is high.

So don't be too hard on yourself.

@HelloProject Online gaming (not MU but stuff like Among Us and other social games) have been good throughout quarantine. Plus they require mics so there's more of a sense of human contact.

@Lotherio said in The Future is Now:

Secondary to this, if they opened up the monolith and it had the 6K year old texts that Joseph Smith was looking for to mark the promised land, I would not be surprised by that either.

1. "Oh god please please please dont let this thing be a Mormon play to fabricate some miracle bullshit."

2. "Well, that's definitely more creative than campaigns every 3 years to liquidate your kids' college savings accounts to donate to the church because "The Rapture is seriously happening this time, we promise", so I gotta applaud that a little bit. Well done."

@Aria said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

@Ghost said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

For fuck's sake my car doesn't have an extended warranty. whyyyyyy

'Cause you didn't sign up for one when you bought it, I'd guess?

You can add them after the fact, though. You can buy them at a dealership for whatever make your car is.

No I just keep getting that robo-dial about my car's extended warranty, in which there is none. Easily 2x/day at this point.

For fuck's sake my car doesn't have an extended warranty. whyyyyyy

Friend's wife and fellow D&D group member has gone from ER to ICU to ventilator and sedation. Double pneumonia. Her Covid experience is going the wrong direction. Fuck this virus.

I've already got one memorial to attend after this nightmare ends so please do not go through airports unless it is absolutely necessary. Do not go to bars and restaurants unless absolutely necessary.

It's been made pretty clear by now that this virus doesnt care how little you're afraid of it. Dont fuck around and find out.

These Fremen have become water-fat and weak. Mua'dib's name is no blessing. It is a curse.

Not that I'd want someone to OUT themselves (seriously, please don't), but I don't know of anyone who actually works in the psychiatric community who plays in these games. I feel like a therapist telling someone to go out in the wild in this hobby to roleplay through something as a proxy sounds like a really risky thing to tell a client to do given the pitfalls that can come with other players. IMO I don't think a therapist would immerse themselves in this hobby, regardless. Stuff like tennis and supporting your local sports team is a lot more healthy per dose by percentage.

100% please...never roleplay something personally cathartic to address your RL issues. 150% never do so without consent of the other player. If player consents, please refer to 100% don't.