Posts made by Gingerlily

@WTFE said:

That "customer service" model thing is, I think, an artifact of the sales persona leaking through again.

Well there -are- some MUDs that are run for profit. They do some pretty cool things to keep players interested, both story-wise and other-stuff-wise. But they don't meet the OR terms so I don't believe they are included there. I mentioned them earlier before I did the thing where I said I'd 'said everything I had to say' and then started adding stuff again because oops, but I really have kind of covered it all.

I am with @Three-Eyed-Crow. I did go and glance around. I saw in my first cursory glance months ago just uncomfortable sexist ugh, and if there was worthwhile discussion behind/around it, it didn't stand out. The most active thread at the time was something about how it was impossible for female players to get along, ever, and started by the admin of one of the featured games. (I think). No thanks. I get that they are trying to make something happen, but it might take some work to get there. Also do we have stats on the male to female ratio on MUDs vs on MUSHs? I have a feeling they're not the same. Just a guess though. Anyway, carry on with your thing here.

@Misadventure said:

The only thing worse than being done, is not being done.

flees from Oscar Wilde

As I read it, the courtesans are closer to Venetian courtesans. They sell sex with companionship. The particular flavors depends on the House they belong to. However, the main character for the first three (?) is a masochistic avatar. But everyone has a tattoo that when completed is their freedom to stay with the House or go do something else.

Yeah, its in that vein. The courtesans are actually part of the religion. One of the Angels that left heaven to follow the Son-of-Jesus that @Big-Daddy-Amin mentioned is an Angel of love/passion/sexing it up? So the courtesans are there to pay tribute to her sort of and each House of them has their own way of doing so. They are all very fancy and considered 'holy' and it is interesting. We tried for a while to stir up more theological debates and competition between them, but we've always had way more nobles than courtesans so it was hard to get it going very far.

I think you could make a group, ignore everyone else, go to a place where there are no others, and set up your own (in theme) adventures. Sadly they are more medieval than swashbuckling in the books, though the KD setting has moved on by a few centuries.

You could do that, or something like it if you wanted! There have been pirates pillaging (bad NPC ones) but no one thus far has wanted to try going out to hunt them down or anything. (It would have to be off main grid anyway, since the city where the action is is landlocked) Landlocked shenanigans are also encouraged!

I think I'd rather try 7Th Sea again, but I feel the need to swash about with my buckler.

I can appreciate that fully. John Wick games are sweet. I wish there was a Houses of the Blooded MUSH but that would probably be completely impossible given the amount of co-operation it requires.

Yeah I did not say there was not TS, not plenty of TS. (how much here is a lot?). I think there is the same amount of TS as on a WoD game, on a GoT game, on basically any other kind of game where there is plot but also people doing their own storylines, and where TS is not banned from the game. It happens, it happens plenty enough, its just not the only thing there is to do.

@Big-Daddy-Amin kind of has the books/theme in a pretty solid colorful summary. It's an interesting world, and the books have a lot of sex, I won't say they don't. Fifty Shades of Thrones is an amusing title too. That being said, from my observation there isn't a whole lot more TS, either kinky or non, on this game than o a WoD or WhateverElse game. Some people do that and only that, some people do some of that and some politics, some socializing, some whatever, and some people set themselves at 'rated R' and do none of the sexytimes and only the plotty times. You have choices. The first books DID have a hooker save the world because of how much she loved spankings and that is NOT how our 'saving the world' plots have gone, we figure its time to go a new way.

You don't have to worry too much about 'historical' canon because one fun (?) part about Jacqueline Carey's world is it is impossible to pinpoint when it took place. Alternate history! Fashion is its own entire thing, technology seems kind of Renaissance-y except no guns, its piecemeal. The easiest way to avoid being 'against canon' is to play someone from the target country (alternate France) because the foreign countries she wrote are sort of all over the place.

If you came by and found it cliquish...I know all games can be at times and sometimes it can be really hard to break through that. If there's another time to give it a try though, it's probably now/in the next few months. We had a spot where a -lot- of new players came in with groups of friends to play with and it seemed hard for people coming in solo to find their niche, but over time that dynamic has changed a lot. If it wasn't for you I totally get it, but I will say for sure that there's been a shift in groups and there are some gaps in 'power' that can allow for someone new to find something cool to do straightaway.

As for the foreigner thing: tension between locals and foreigners /is/ part of the current storyline but players can do with that what they will. Just fun times with Xenophobia!

To those who tried but just couldn't get into the theme, thanks for giving it a whirl! I will be the first to admit it is a 'unique' setting. We inherited this game from someone else, I am not a die-hard fan of the novels, I liked some and hated others, I certainly didn't write them, so if they aren't your thing I am the last person to take it personally.

Okay so!

I am making this first post a quick one and will add some more details later. Many of the plots that we had either going on or coming up got mildly fizzled as August became a crazy out-of-nowhere busy month for our staffers and for many of our players too who would have kept things stirring in the meantime. Thus, some stories may have seemed briefly stagnant during the end of summer (We managed to avoid a summer slump but hit a small 'August slump' and the game was quieter as we had students going back to school and teachers (see me) suddenly realizing they hadn't started their 'self paced summer class' that was due August 21st until...August 2nd. Ooopsie. /excuses.

Now that things have begun to settle both for staff and many of our players, we are starting to add more support from staff to those who are off working on the war plot. (Which has been going strong in terms of battles and dice, but might need some chances to get some nice in person scenes rolling to represent the character development that goes with all the pretty numbers) We're also creating some more intrigues back at home so that players can have politics to sink into while the war finishes up, and alternate approaches to some of the supernatural plot that has been progressing slowly as well.

Thus! If summer saw you drifting away due to personal distractions, we get it, we did to, come back we miss you! If you got bored because not a lot was going on, we get it, it wasn't, but come see if that has changed, or talk to us about plots that you'd like to run yourself if that is your cuppa! If you've never checked us out before and enjoy political intrigue, interesting religious/supernatural things to unravel/ 'lords and ladies' (frock drama!) type rp, or any combinations of the above (you don't have to engage in all!) come and check us out. Take a break from vampires and werewolves and mages to put on your favorite pseudo Rennfaire outfits and hobnob in fake France with a bloodline descended from sexy angels! (No really!)

The game is pretty laid back and low maintenance, so even if you are very involved in another, this can be where you come now and again for a breath of fresh something else. I (Asherat) and the Headwiz (Skaldia) are willing to help new players find concepts they'd like, or old ones find new ones they'd like. If you've tried before and found that you couldn't make what you wanted happen, I encourage you to try again. We'll work with you to find something that is fun and fits in with our theme.

http://www.kushielsdebut.org/index.php/Main_Page

Happy Fall!

I definitely did not chime in here to demand a response from any of the OR people, @Jeshin or his co-siterunners. Just to kind of gently point out that as far as "We posted an advertisement, everyone had opinions" was kind of the way of things. Not a big deal, and in fact as I looked back a bit over the very beginnings of it months ago it was pretty chill for a while, interesting even. It just...kept going. I said all I had to say about the content months ago.

@WTFE said:

As a teacher there's two ways to make me feel appreciated at the end of a lesson:

1. Standing ovation
2. A bottle of armagnac.

Guess who got both today!

I never get those. Is it because I'm no good, or because my students are four

@Jaunt said:

@Sunny said:

Maybe this is part of the problem, @Jaunt.

The 'advertisement' board is still a place for discussion, here! Amazing.

It's not the place where we prefer to discuss changing the inherent branding and nature of our website. Your inability to understand why this is does not reflect well on your critical thinking skills.

I am not super excited about jumping in here because internet fights, meh. But really, jumping on someone's critical thinking skills when you have not figured out what happens on every other thread on this board isn't reflecting well on -you-. This is how every single advertisement goes. I'll jump in as an example. I run Kushiel's Debut, a niche MUSH that @Jeshin even played on for a bit, and I like to think he and I get along okay even though we've argued a few times on this thread. We've shook hands and made up. But take the advertisement for that game for example. It starts with some enthusiasm and then has some people jumping in with "I don't like it, here's why." (I am not active on the thread at this point because I hadn't joined the forum.) @Sunny, who was active though, shared with me what the feedback was, and I got to chat with the headwiz and decide in one case "We're not sure what this is about or that we can or wish to fix it" and in another "Ooooh, I think we know what this complaint is, yeah we could definitely improve this, etc etc" It's a discussion. You can choose to ignore any feedback or questions or critique about what you are advertising. That doesn't mean the feedback won't come. Otherwise there would just be one post on each 'Ad-ver-tise-ments' thread.

I don't know what a 'splat' is. I clearly don't belong here or anywhere

Boo, I liked it how it was!

Yeah, I agree with you entirely. The game I refer to is also one of text gaming's dinosaurs, its been up since 1996 I think, so it is entirely possible that even if they did -not- want permadeath they would have found different ways to explore what to do with death if they were doing it today, or had done it 3 years ago, or 5, or even 10. A game that old can add developments, and tweak old systems, but some fundamentals have to be kept as is unless it is 'rebooting' or something.

But yeah. I am probably repeating myself from earlier in the thread somewhere, but these are text roleplaying games accessed through telnet, they have far more commonalities than differences. The differences can be sort of interesting to think about, ponder, learn from? But to draw lines between and make a big deal out of to me gets yawny. Cake, Ice Cream, blah. Etc.

As a follow up to Theno's other post, especially because I keep sounding 'final' in my discussions and then going on, my only real reason for feeling 'vested' in this conversation is that I feel like I might be the only person (besides maybe @Jeshin, but he has to rep his thing here) around who actually enjoys MUDs /and/ MUSHes and does not quite understand why it seems like in general people are so either or. Get your geek on with the dice and more ST involvement, get your geek on with some 'mobs' and a little more hacking/slashing/crafting to go with your evil clan's plot to take over the world...they are all perfectly legitimate, lovely ways to be geeky!

@Thenomain

I am not actually -sure- to be honest. I mean, Example MUD for me is Threshold RPG, that is where I played for most of my Mudding years, and though I do not anymore it isn't because I don't love the staff, or didn't enjoy the play, or that I found MUSHing to be the 'best' kind of dessert and I'd just never known about it. (It did turn out to be a more appropriate one for me as I got older and the time and direct screen attention I could put into gaming changed)

So there, and I don't want to be a spokesman because it has been a while and this is through the haze of my memory, but you die, you go to the Underworld, and the God of the Underworld brings you back. Now the idea is that npcs die all the time and don't come back, it isn't like The Land That Death Forgot is the theme, so death still has to exist as a concept. And rping as if death is permanent also prevents other sorts of rp-detrimental and game detrimental things such as camping around waiting for an NPC you just killed to respawn so you can kill him again. "Evil Wizard Zoobie has died, victory unto us, let us go!" "Well we could take him again, he'll be back in what, 15 minutes?" This would not be conducive to any kind of sinking into your character, and RP Muds are sort of trying to merge that "We like to party up with our tank, our healer, our mages, and whatever and go have cool adventures/explore/fight stuff in real time" with "Also we are telling a larger story involving races, religions, clans, politics, etc etc, whatever is in our theme."

Theme and setting don't say that death is permanent /necessarily/. There is a God of the Underworld, sometimes he restores deserving souls. The PCs are just very deserving souls? It's why I said it sounded a bit ooc. It /is/, there is a suspension of disbelief you are playing through. Because you don't mix what you know ooc with what you know ic, the same way on a WoD game you probably wouldn't say "I suspect that guy has Dominate 5, which means he will just make us do whatever, so lets avoid him." You wouldn't say "I suspect if I don't succeed in my attempt to kill this dragon, the great God Mortis will revive me, but I will not be nearly so powerful and I could lose all of my awesome gear, still it is worth the risk." You talk about the risk vs. reward as if death is feared because it is death, not because of the game mechanics of death.

Does that make more sense? I mean, it is perfectly logical that a game that wanted to incorporate some kind of 'death' that occurred when hit points were all gone that was not death exactly but something else, and still offer penalty so that the motives were there to 'play well' so to speak still existed could do so. The 'you die, you are resurrected, you may die again, but death is still death and we act like it is death because we have not written a deathless world' doesn't HAVE to be how it is. I haven't seen a game that plays with this shade of grey, but it could be done, yeah. I get you @Thenomain

I expect that each game has a thematic way of explaining this, be it a God of the Underworld bringing people back or whatever. Clerics resurrecting people. I don't have a wide berth of experience on many games that do this, but those I have played on/heard things about figure out how to work it in.

On the RPE MUD I played for many years, knowing that your opponent did not 'stay dead' did NOT make PvP or PK any gentler. People who got killed would lose levels and accumulated xp that usually amounted to months of 'work', and these things are important on a game where some of the entertainment is gathering up a group of your friends to slay a dragon or whatever. You may return from the dead, but you have been SHAMED by your lack of skills in being ganked by the other guy, and also you are sad because you have been demoted from invitations to the dragon slaying group to invitations to the lesser-beast slaying group until you get yourself back into top shape.

There was plenty to make players, and characters, cry. It was gentler than losing a character you'd created forever perhaps, but that did not make it -gentle-.

@Thenomain

Yeah. On MUDs where there is no permanent death, characters have to act as if they are shocked every time someone 'dies' and then is returned. Characters have to rp as if they fear death will be permanent, even if it is not, even if they have died 12 times and returned from the dead. It has a bit of OOC cheesiness to it obviously, but games make it work. I've played on games where it works just fine.

I was not referring to any other aspect of OOCing, present or not, just the aspect of referring to, and playing out, dying and coming back on games where it is not permanent and happens frequently. Because I -still- do not believe that games where there is no permadeath, where people do die and return, are inferior in their rp environment/less immersive/not as awesome/whatever, and that is an argument that "RPI vs Everyone" has had for years and years. I've just picked my stance is all.

I mean, theoretically, because now she is ignoring me to watch Peppa Pig, but I ASKED her if she wanted to go outside to the park.

I mean, I greatly enjoy a few weeks to spend lazing about with MY OWN child, whom I often neglect during the year because the dozens of other needy munchkins whom I also love but did not birth suck at my brain capacity, and sometimes my soul, so that by the time I get home I need to just flop for a while and cannot be the "Can we go to the park? Do you want to paint something?" because I have done park duty twice and painted many things already, and that is bad and I am bad and typing it makes me -feel bad- but at least there is the glorious, glorious summer, where she is the only tiny person who wants my <3.

I've become pretty fond of this community, and I was Not A Fan of a community that existed before it with some of the same members, but a very different tone. There are discussions here that can get heated, but I find most of them intelligently heated...if people have questions they ask them. They're usually not even related to personal choices people made on personal games, unless they relate to larger issues, like yeah, Intellectual Property intent....or that thread on sexual themes that turned to a discussion of rape rp and that can get people emotional for lots of reasons.

There are going to be people who come and get some backlash...whether they have history with others here (I don't, I'm a 'community n00b) and my gaming experiences have gone on for years but been too spotty in some places (WoD) for me to have the strong opinions others do about some aspects of things. I'm glad that Optional Realities isn't clinging to the RPI label, because whatever it was meant to be way back in the day, what it became was just a huge MUD vs MUD, battle of Which Kind of Geek is Better that went on for more than a -decade- and those of us who watched, or even piped up, are probably all just donnne.

Most MUSHes are permadeath, yeah. I do -agree- that there is some OOCness on any game where permadeath doesn't exist, that you have to do some suspension of disbelief to still have characters properly 'scared' of death, but some do it well. And the MUDs that don't have permadeath are some of the ones who have become actual commercial successes...looking at IRE and Threshold/Frogdice entertainment in particularly. I can't tell if the 'listing' of games matters overall, but when reaching out to people for contribution about what makes a game last over time, where roleplaying is part of the game and part of what makes players say they keep coming back, it seems to me like those who levied this 'hobby' into full time careers are valuable people to have contributing, writing, talking, whatever. Though I don't know how far they have even branched from the text game genre at this point into indie gaming...they'd still have information.

As for here, this to me hasn't struck me as a 'shadowboard' for whining about mean staff or bad games or whatever. There's parts that are, but that isn't the bulk of what I've seen or I wouldn't be into it, because that isn't my thing so much. I find the conversations about what people like and don't like in their games interesting, it has provided me with insight and ideas, and shown me more of what is out there for when/if I do get the time to try new things.

My RL peeve/anger is that they've been selling school supplies for like two weeks already. I've only been on summer break for two weeks. I don't want to see the pencils and the crayons yet. I know, sales, get the good bargain first, but NO.

I know some teachers say "The summers off is a myth, we work all year round, conferences, blah, etc" and that is very valid for some, and I did attend a state conference and am working (leisurely) at two online classes for credit, but no. It's a summer off. It is noon and I am in yoga wear but have not decided if I want to do yoga yet. Love me, hate me, think I am the savior of the future or a mooch off of your precious tax dollars, I get it, I've heard it all. But I am on vacation, so Target, put the pencils BACK until August. Nobody wants to see that. Nobody wants a backpack or a schoolbox. LEAVE US BE.

I am not a 'foodie' but I am trying to learn to be more experimental and try new things instead of slapping together the same five recipes I always do. I plan to eventually branch out by shopping, searching for recipes, putting in the actual work, but this summer we have been doing Blue Apron one of the many 'See the new way Millenials are Changing Dinner Forever' types of 'send the recipes and ingredients to your door, you follow instructions, learn a new chopping or cooking technique in the process, and voila! (Also: Not a Millenial, just a lazy Gen Xer who doesn't like the supermarket, and enjoys mail)

It's a bit pricy, certainly more pricey than just deciding to cook that same thing, tracking down the supplies, and making it, but it saves me time and is fun. Sometimes I've gotten the husband to cook side by side with me which is also fun. I don't plan to do it forever, but since at our house, especially work week 'dinner' can often be "I dunno, you want to order something? Lets just make salads or grilled cheese" it is stepping up our game a bit.

I love wine, but I am trying to work on a serious migraine health plan this summer that includes forgoing it for many, many months. Maybe the bottles we already have will age into something amazing?