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    Posts made by Ghost

    • RE: Good TV

      Eric Andre and Borat returning in the same year. I could cry with joy.

      posted in Tastes Less Game'y
      Ghost
      Ghost
    • RE: MUSH conflict... sad face?

      @ThoughtBubble said in MUSH conflict... sad face?:

      To the credit of the staff of most games, they seem to recognize this behavior as childish and inappropriate, but the only staffer who has been willing to handle it in a way that doesn't effectively kill the game for me is Fara. (Thanks Faraday!)

      Follow-up. I agree with the shoutout to @faraday. Even when we disagree on things she provides a mature counterpoint and keeps things civil, which I have always appreciated. I'm a supporter.

      One thing that came to mind while I was thinking about this thread was the concept of self-esteem and insecurity that I regularly ran into on these games. I think it's important to recognize the number of people who at any given time worry that they're being avoided, blacklisted, shunned, making a fool out of themselves, disliked, that their poses are being judged unfairly, that people don't want to RP with them, that someone's spreading false rumors about them, etc, etc, etc. There also seems to be a number of people out there who can be fairly vocal about how great they and theirs are, how they don't believe there to be bullies, cliques, etc, and I've always found that somewhat telling.

      Throw a rock on this forum and you'll hit someone who feels that they're being judged unfairly and takes great care to constantly consider whether or not there will be retribution drama for speaking up or standing up for themselves. Throw a rock and you'll hit someone who worries about being silently judged (and then overtly judged through pages, IMs, cliques, etc) in a way that will leave them unable to enjoy the hobby. Throw a rock and you'll hit a staffer who had to weigh whether or not disciplining a problem player would result in drama/accusations that would destroy their game.

      I don't believe these insecurities to be 100% on the shoulders of the insecure, because I think a much larger number of people are well aware of how much nastiness goes on behind the scenes with some fairly prevalent players. A lot of people just want to have fun without having to prove themselves as being worthwhile to others, and I've always find that somewhat depressing that this insecurity is as pervasive as I saw it to be.

      Like Warma, the part that sucks is that there's something this hobby really could provide that I couldn't get anywhere else, and I occasionally check back in to see if the landscape has changed. Personally, I don't think the landscape WILL change until some key people go away,

      posted in Mildly Constructive
      Ghost
      Ghost
    • RE: MUSH conflict... sad face?

      @ThoughtBubble I can really only advise as a former player who, maybe a little over a year ago, decided to delete the apps, website bookmarks, etc and move on with other night hobbies.

      For me, it got to the point where the games were synonymous with the OOC politics. I tried going in-cognito but I'd get grilled in pages about who I am, or how my PB was a PB of someone who hurt a 3rd party friend and ruined it for them, or unrequested personal details about how the person I'm roleplaying with was a leg-pissing slut. Then, i tried going in-cognito and playing undeclared female PCs, but that resulted in page harassment. It got to the point where no matter my better efforts the OOC politics, the circlejerk of staff friendship benefits, and the extreme pushiness involved in the murky half-truths of character romances just became constant and uncomfortable.

      I think the general MU culture has become a cult in the sense that it can be very bizarre to outsiders, and the moment you start to grasp for more mature, rational behavior the discomfort becomes all the more apparent. There is a way things are done and the cycles have repeated for decades with few changes. There are many people who arent half as honest as they claim to be, and villain figures who arent half as evil as some problem people (who may or may not be considered problem people, yet they are) make them out to be.

      My advice is that if you feel that there's no way to escape whatever you find negative about the hobby...then dont dedicate another decade to trying to find a place where it works. Some people have good successes with clinging to very specific bubbles of trusted players (while weathering the bizarre/corrupt/dishonest behaviors), but even then I hear a lot about how it's an obstacle course to enjoy the game as a whole while navigating these types.

      For me, I ultimately decided that what I originally wanted was a large group of people working together to have fun, but I realized that I couldn't remember the last time I felt an environment so welcoming/rewarding without little political/social camps and hierarchies.

      I've talked with people who also agree that social life outside of MU can be stunted from the drama of MU. I've focused these days on PS4, board game nights, mmorpgs, tabletop rpgs, and disc golf. It's been fun and rewarding for me, and I dont feel so much like I'm having to swim upstream against a bunch of challenging personalities to simply enjoy my evenings.

      So all I can tell you aside from this is that I cut the cord and my general evenings are way less frustrating and self-esteem compromising than they used to be.

      posted in Mildly Constructive
      Ghost
      Ghost
    • RE: Is this hobby on it's last legs?

      @bear_necessities said in Is this hobby on it's last legs?:

      Firan had a similiar sized playerbase.

      To be fair, Firan had all kinds of coded/creep bizarre to it that made it more a product of the Shang/PenDes crowd than the "lit-rpg" crowd. Arx is the first non-wod/non-kink game in a while to organically draw in more than, what, 60 unique ips?

      The mudstats numbers are a bit misleading because it doesnt take alts into account.

      posted in Mildly Constructive
      Ghost
      Ghost
    • RE: Is this hobby on it's last legs?

      @faraday said in Is this hobby on it's last legs?:

      @Ghost said in Is this hobby on it's last legs?:

      With 90% of the playerbase being consumers (as opposed to producers) and regular talks about how hard it can be to "sell" someone on the hobby, I think it's fairly realistic to assume that there will not likely be a torch-passing to some following generation of future coders/game owners once the current 10% of producers ages out, get old, or turns to dust.

      You seem to be assuming that there's no way to make it easier to be a producer, or to make it easier to 'sell' someone on the hobby. I would argue that the development of new platforms like Ares and Evennia have the potential to change both of these foundational assumptions.

      Will they? Only time will tell.

      I think that from within the hobby there's definitely a desire to promote it, and I don't think you're wrong that time will tell. I just think that there are some logical places where I find it to be likely that the platform won't pass this current "generation" of players.

      Logically excluding one's current love for the hobby...

      1. The overall population per game has dropped significantly since 1995/2000 (excluding Shang/pendes)
      2. The community isnt known for its friendliness or lack of judgmental power figures. Weird politics.
      3. The time sink required to run a game, let alone a free one, and even PLAY a game requires a lot of investment including paying for cloud-spun servers.
      4. The number of people willing to invest time into game ownership is heavily overshadowed by the people that dont want to do those things.

      Even if hardware can be used to make spinning up a server easier, MU existed in the 80s/90s because there were no MMORPGs or services like Roll20/FG. What's left is a number of die-hards who have been doing it since then, 2-3 people who were coding back then, and yourself and maybe 1 other who are coding games using something other than an antiquated code base that they know how to modify but dont understand the actual guts of the code.

      So I figure, what, the average age of the "coder" in the hobby is currently somewhere between 35-50, and the average player age is sitting somewhere around 35-45?

      Not trying to attack the hobby, I'm just sharing where I think it's highly probably that the "average age" will continue to go up, where the # of people willing to own/run/code games will remain the same. A couple of new players trickle in here and a few of them may stay, but unless there's some kind of cultural boom where "retro unix-based BBS systems reappropriated into online real-time pseudo-novelist slash rpg" becomes a fad, I see 10 years from now it's still gonna be the same people.

      In the end, I feel it's logical to assume that when THIS crowd and the MUDder crowd dont have a younger generation to pass the torch down to, the speakeasy factor of places like PenDes will be the main core of people running server games (and attracting high numbers) like these (look at the numbers difference; it's already happening).

      Point in case: Mudstats

      Filter by 30 day average. Furry, Shang, PenDes are all pulling in numbers in the 500-600 range. Then some MUDs. This crowd doesnt appear until Arx/CoH show up around 125. Then more MUDs and Furry games until Heroes Assemble clocks in at 90. The 30-day average quickly hangs to between 20-40 shortly thereafter, which tells me two things:

      1. The story-driven lit-rpg crowd is a niche crowd in a hobby currently known for furries, sex, and gemstone 4.
      2. Despite what people assume the number of players may be in the story-driven-lit-rpg crowd is, it isnt enough to fill 2 school buses and I place the # of people willing to run/own games to be less than 20 (and that number hasnt shifted much, nor have the identities of those people, in the last 15 years). Most games in this crowd are jazzed if they have 20 active players.

      Anyway, time will tell and thanks for coming to my TED talk apparently. Holy shit I typed one out, here.

      posted in Mildly Constructive
      Ghost
      Ghost
    • RE: Is this hobby on it's last legs?

      This hobby is continued and maintained by the same playerbase that has been involved for over 10-20 years and the same "coders/game developers" that have been coding for the last 10-25 years.

      With 90% of the playerbase being consumers (as opposed to producers) and regular talks about how hard it can be to "sell" someone on the hobby, I think it's fairly realistic to assume that there will not likely be a torch-passing to some following generation of future coders/game owners once the current 10% of producers ages out, get old, or turns to dust.

      But I'm pretty sure Shang and pedo havens like PenDes will thrive because they're speakeasies.

      posted in Mildly Constructive
      Ghost
      Ghost
    • RE: The Work Thread

      Favorite thing at work: VS Code.
      Worst thing at work: VS Code

      Love the script editing, but hate using it for SCM

      posted in Tastes Less Game'y
      Ghost
      Ghost
    • RE: Good TV

      @Arkandel said in Good TV:

      @Coin said in Good TV:

      Tatiana Maslany will be She-Hulk.

      I wonder how they'll do it. I mean in terms of the special effects. Then again Disney has deep pockets and if they gave it the Mandalorian treatment...

      I'm curious about the height thing. Maslany is 5'4".

      posted in Tastes Less Game'y
      Ghost
      Ghost
    • RE: Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.

      @Ganymede Damn yous!

      posted in Tastes Less Game'y
      Ghost
      Ghost
    • RE: Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.

      So how about them ps5 preorders, yeah?

      posted in Tastes Less Game'y
      Ghost
      Ghost
    • RE: General Video Game Thread

      @Ganymede said in General Video Game Thread:

      @Cassite said in General Video Game Thread:

      Then the gameplay. And the cruddy female representation. Euugh.

      Yeah, you're right there.

      But dudes with car was still pretty fun.

      And the game was beautiful to look at.

      FF: Road Trip got me to tear up at the end. The end story was wonderful.

      posted in Other Games
      Ghost
      Ghost
    • RE: Good TV

      @GreenFlashlight said in Good TV:

      My feelings on Hawk are complex. I think he's a great character with a well-done arc, and I understand and believe what he's going through, but I also have no sympathy for him because he knows he's terrible and he actively chooses to continue being terrible every day.

      I think that's altogether the point.

      Johnny Lawrence was THE chief "bully" of 1980s cinema. Now, in Cobra Kai, we see that Johnny wants more from life but under Kreese couldn't see the forest from the trees and it damaged his life. Hawk was like Johnny, a scrawny kid who was bullied and turned into essentially a violent gang member, but his motivation as a bully (like Johnny) is fear-based. Strike first before they hurt you.

      So Hawk is an echo of Johnny in teenage years, thus making the viewer see Hawk through the eyes they saw Johnny in through the 80s, then compare to Johnny now, and then say "Oh come on, Eli, Demetri is your best friend. Don't do this!"

      It's good writing, because good TV writers don't write characters who make good decisions; they write characters who will make the audience scream and yell and point at the TV like kids watching Dora the Explorer trying to get her to look under the rock for the banana.

      Miguel and Robby are Daniel/Johnny from 2 perspectives (or alternative paths)
      Hawk and Tory are Johnny from his old perspective
      Demetri is Daniel LaRusso from his old perspective

      posted in Tastes Less Game'y
      Ghost
      Ghost
    • RE: Good TV

      @Auspice I'll also add that the cheesy "hawk screech" sounds always get a chuckle out of me, and is a good way to remind the viewer that it's just a show.

      posted in Tastes Less Game'y
      Ghost
      Ghost
    • RE: Good TV

      @Coin said in Good TV:

      At least it's not a POC character in that position.

      Tut-tut mon frere, Eli Moskowitz appears to descend from the Israelites.

      Sounds like wading into dangerous territory if you ask me.

      @Auspice said in Good TV:

      Hawk is the best. #changemymind

      Hawk IS a great character for all kinds of reasons, up to and including being a perfect example as to how a sweet, bullied kid can become the worst of the worst, which I've seen happen so much.

      They'll need to introduce more antagonists before they consider a "redemption arc" for Hawk, but I'd be down to see more Eli/Demetri bromance.

      posted in Tastes Less Game'y
      Ghost
      Ghost
    • RE: Good TV

      @Cupcake said in Good TV:

      @GreenFlashlight How dare you sir; this show is 100% Gen X pandering.

      Agreed. It's 100% Gen-X pandering.

      Cobra Kai isn't GREAT, it's clearly not Citizen Kane, but it's fun and I'm enjoying it, which is what I think they were shooting for. I'm on-board for season 3, especially after that foreshadowing in the last 30 minutes of season 2.

      I'm particularly fond of Johnny, but mostly because IRL I have a good friend who is a cop who is the same age and build as Johnny, only he has brown hair. CopGuy is kind of a local hero to us. He loves 80's metal and has belts in 3 different martial arts and has a Captain America soul. So watching Johnny fight reminds me of the time I got to see my friend test for his 2nd or 3rd black belt. If Johnny Lawrence keeps on track to being a better man, it might just end up scary how much he reminds me of my friend.

      No bullshit: I watched as my CopBud was blindfolded and attacked by his sensei in a bunch of different holds. While he was blindfolded, the sensei motioned silently to another student to attack from a different angle. My friend ended up getting out of it by twisting and counter-locking both attackers. RightGuy was dragged left, LeftGuy was dragged right. They crashed into each other and stumbled out of the hold. Was sooooo cool.

      I love that whether or not a character is a protagonist and antagonist isn't as important as their own character threads. There's really only 1 pure antagonist on the show, and that's going to be prevalent in season 3.

      posted in Tastes Less Game'y
      Ghost
      Ghost
    • RE: Good TV

      @Lotherio That arm is broke AF, yo

      posted in Tastes Less Game'y
      Ghost
      Ghost
    • RE: What Types of Games Would People Like To See?

      @Wizz Admittedly, those were a part of my wish list back in the day. I think those would be great options.

      posted in Game Development
      Ghost
      Ghost
    • RE: Good TV

      I saw that all of Reno 911 is on CBS All-Access (which I have while watching Lower Decks, Picard, Discovery, etc)

      Observation: This stuff was hilarious in the early 2000s but now when I watch these cops jump a dude in a Slurpee costume for throwing their litter back into the police car ("*Turn the cameras off; dont record this.") it's awkward as fuck.

      (Note: It's not funny in any fashion but what was generally accepted humor 15 years ago isn't the same these days)

      I heard Reno 911 is on that Quibi channel with new stuff. Does anyone know if they're addressing all of this police state/abuse stuff or is it more of the same?

      posted in Tastes Less Game'y
      Ghost
      Ghost
    • RE: Wheel of Time MU(SH|X)

      @Auspice I think being unable to tell lies and never asking direct questions would be fun and challenging to write, especially with a varied audience.

      posted in Mildly Constructive
      Ghost
      Ghost
    • RE: Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff

      @Wizz said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

      @RightMeow

      I'm not sure that I do love it anymore. The books have had sentimental value to me because I grew up with them, but how I feel about them as an adult has changed a lot, and especially in the light of the author's views that I personally find hateful a lot of that fondness for them has dried up.

      Also, I dunno, I wouldn't exactly compare a former fandom to a former religion. But if I'd gotten a bible verse or a cross, just speaking for myself I'd probably feel pretty strongly about altering or removing them too when I became an atheist.

      Tattoo person here (I have 5+, friends with 30+, friends with tattoo artists).

      The likelihood that any given tattoo won't ever be associated with something else is definitely not 0%. A comedian I saw had a joke about a guy who got his favorite band's logo tattooed on his arm...

      Here's the hard reality...

      1. If you feel like the tattoo represents something you aren't okay with looking in the mirror for...then you should cover it up.
      2. If you feel like the concept of the Deathly Hollows itself can be divorced from the author (plenty of people love Cthulhu but hate HP Lovecraft), then resign yourself to the reality that JK Rowling didn't get paid royalties when you got the tattoo and adopt a "fuck Rowling but the Deathly Hollows are a great concept that I love" approach.
      3. Consider the number of people who see you shirtless and divide by the number of people who would actually associate you with JK Rowling's politics (in reality, this is a small number of people). Pretty sure the number of people with GRYFFINDOR tats aren't living at risk of people throwing hot coffee in their faces for supporting JK's politics. MEEEEELLLIONS of people own HP swag
      posted in Tastes Less Game'y
      Ghost
      Ghost
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