Posts made by Gingerlily

@admiral said in What the fuck happened to Hip-Hop?:

...you guys are missing the point of the thread. Hip hop started as protest music. Now it's basically just disco. That's literally what the video was about. It's not about 'what sounds good'. It's about a form of expression that has lost its way. We now have idiots with rainbow hair and facial tattoos molesting children and rapping about it.

Some of it maybe but not all of it is the point. Rock is not dead, Punk is not dead. Grunge is not even dead! (my personal favorite 90's nostalgia!). There was super poppy generic terrible hip hop back in the good old days too. Remember when Death Row's big new deal was MC Hammer? This is like every genre of music forever.

Also back in the good days we had some idiots doing terrible shit also and rapping about it, or just rapping about terrible shit. I really don't feel like anything has actually changed except the collective "X Music was so much better before..." that happens with every style of music since I don't even know, but I wouldn't be shocked if in Elisabeth I's court there were discussions about how lute playing had really just gone downhill and was only about the glamour and money.

Also I know not the focus of the thread but like...

One thing that happened to hip hop recently is it served as the genre for the biggest deal musical of MAYBE FOREVER and that was kind of a thing. Also for the first time hip hop artists were regularly socializing and performing at the White House. Those don't speak for the music itself sure but still relevant information.

I mean I still listen to more 'classic 90's hip hop than new stuff, same as I do with rock and metal and whatever, its super common to gravitate to the music that surrounded you during that thrilling hormonal burst on the way to adulthood, and I am one such gravitator. But I've heard new cool things I liked.

There's tons of great hip hop around now what even is this thread?

I love how we are constantly posting about 'how everything was better then' (usually the 90s) and yet also 'why aren't young people doing the thing we do on this forum'.

I'm as ancient as most of ya'll but we could dial the evidence back!

@thatguythere said in A (Mildly Complete) List of Current Games:

@gingerlily said in A (Mildly Complete) List of Current Games:

I have never found the common refrain of 'It was so much better in the 90's'

Whenever I hear this in regards to mushing I always wonder if they lived through the same 90s I did.
Not to say I didn't have a shit ton of fun back then but I would be very hesitant to all anything from then better. It was different some of the issues were different but I would also agree that from a qualitative perspective if not a quantitative one things have gotten better not worse.
Of course I don't tend to have much a sense of nostalgia in general.

MUSIC was better in the 90's, obviously. MU*ing is just as good now.

I have never found the common refrain of 'It was so much better in the 90's' at all informative of my own experience. I have been playing MU* for the same dino amount as most of you give or take (off and on, but active enough) and I've found the quality of games gets better, it is much easier to find a playgroup that shares your level of engagement, (old person with children and grown-up job, handful of hours handful of days a week to college-kid I MU*alldayeverydayhaveyouevertriedJolttowashdownthecocaine) and levels in between!

I find a lot of positive in the community too, I've made both lifelong and shiny new friendships through MU* and that's worth every evening something has aggravated me. I have certainly come across horrible people too, but I'm not sure the ratio of fine to amazing to horrible is that different than any other community. Maybe the anonymity of the net skews a little to horrible, but not enough that I've wanted to forever storm off.

@stabeest said in MU Things I Love:

At least twice in the past couple weeks, I've been in scenes that have been so compelling and so much fun that it's been like I blink and six hours have passed, but the RP has been so good that I've not even noticed.

Me tooooo, and one of them you were there!!!

@macha said in Character 'types':

I stopped trying to play/create male characters. I just always felt like I wasn't quite 'there' with those, no matter what those around me said.

Whenever I play a male character, including playing male NPCs on games where I have staffed, no matter what background or personality I write for them...they turn out to all be asshole frat boys. I'd probably need a therapist to help me figure out why that is, but meh.

I don't play male characters anymore.

@coin said in What is your turning point?:

@gingerlily said in What is your turning point?:

Enthusiasm. Positivity. Those are things I look for in people to play with. If someone loves their character/the setting/the game, they bring that to their rp and their ooc interactions, and its awesome.

Conversely, negativity is such a drag to be around. If a player is clearly disgruntled or burnt out, that shiz is catching. If a player is gossiping oocly about how much the game/this staff decision/the staff personally/xyz players personally are the WORST EVER then I am not at all interested in engaging with them further. Don't drag me down with you.

Now I see why you don't play with me anymore. ;_;

That's totally why. It's definitely not because we don't play on the same game

Enthusiasm. Positivity. Those are things I look for in people to play with. If someone loves their character/the setting/the game, they bring that to their rp and their ooc interactions, and its awesome.

Conversely, negativity is such a drag to be around. If a player is clearly disgruntled or burnt out, that shiz is catching. If a player is gossiping oocly about how much the game/this staff decision/the staff personally/xyz players personally are the WORST EVER then I am not at all interested in engaging with them further. Don't drag me down with you.

@kanye-qwest said in Favorite Minigames:

fun minigames: actual minigames. Games of chance that people can play IC/gambling, that has a slight chance of reward. Gambling games, darts/knife throwing/games that can record a list of "high scores".

Outfit code, so you can build up pretty outfits and switch between them without having to group them all into different bags and wear them.

fortune telling/tarot style code.

Anything random that generates rp, like the @randomscene code. I think @randomseethe would be cool, too, could let people roll dice to pick who to snark on in journals. I don't know if this would be better or worse than everyone ganging up on the FOM. Would be fun in the right hands, though.

Anything that produces something, like gardening or animal breeding

IC gambling/poker has been fun on other games. Even with really buggy code, just the posing gambler poses and people handing out cards, fun fun.

@randomscene is the best but I kind of support @randomseethe too. I mean not really. But kind of.

I'm responding to stuff from like, January here, but I don't get on Soapbox all that much so its just how its gonna be.

I am a 'casual' player on Arx. I play in spurts like, maybe one weekend I play for hours both days but then don't log in all the next week because rl is being intense, and rinse repeat. I am unreliable! Also my character is also mostly social.

That said, I'm super entertained when I do play. Maybe I am just easygoing, but I find things to do, even Metaplot things. I've also missed stuff, including a +crisis that was specifically about my characters house that I was not around at the time to respond to. Ooopsie! But hey they did a round two and I responded to that, and it turned out highly entertaining.

I don't know how to summarize this because I don't even know what my thesis was. Arx can be fun even if you don't get on much so long as you can be chill about it? That!

@faraday said in Armageddon MUD:

@rahnevyn said in Armageddon MUD:

When I mentioned being in the wrong neighborhood and getting mugged as a mistake earlier (like back on page... 10?..) I meant it as a mistake in terms of a "I have heard these warnings, but don't heed them" sense rather than a "Whoops, you took a wrong turn, now you die!" sense. Just to clarify.

I think that's been a big part of the problem in this thread is all the seemingly-contradictory information.

"You won't be punished for being a newbie" vs "People will totally react to your faux pas without breaking character, as if you're a moron, or take advantage of you for making a mistake"

"You have to just learn things for yourself, like where water is and where to hunt" vs "Here's a handy map and a helpfile describing how to hunt"

"There's no OOC channels in-game, why would you even want such a thing?" vs "It's totally fine to use +ooc for brief questions, that's what it's there for"

"Your welcoming might very well be a mugging and/or a murder, just roll with it" vs "We're here to help the new players and there are tons of OOC and IC warning messages"

Etc. And that's all from the people advertising the game - that's not even counting the obvious critics. Personally? It's not a game for me either way and can only attribute my continued participation in this thread to temporary insanity. But folks trying to boil down the dissent to a disagreement about MUDs vs MUSHes are completely missing what folks are actually complaining and/or confused about.

Some of this isn't unique to Armageddon but is part of the RPI culture. I remember back in the day when I played MUDs and was frequently on mudconnector and topmudsites and other forums talking about this or that. One of the most heated debates, heated to the point of ugly, was RPI vs not RPI. Granted this is all at least 15 years ago, but the amount of ridiculous put into those debates was...well ridiculous. I've seen a lot of toxic in the MUSH culture (right here on these boards even!) but very rarely does it get as asinine as the knock down drag out fights I witnessed when people argued what was RPI and what wasnt and some tried to explain why RPI was vry srs and all other roleplaying games were not 'real rp' because people can communicate OOC, or people help newbies, or there is not permanent death.

I've assumed that in the 15 years since they've reached some kind of consensus but I haven't gone back to look.

Most of this has been said before but I'll chime in too.

I played Armageddon twice, and both times ended up leaving.

I've played on a lot of different text games, and before I started MUSHing the games I played were MUDs. Some RPE, some RPI, I liked trying new stuff.

I found Armageddon to be just about the least newbie friendly a game could possibly be. There was an approval process for characters that would often get sent back for edits (I got one because a person of whatever race or culture I picked would not have the eye color I listed, so I got to write it over.) So work is put into creating a new character, which is fine it is on lots of games. But. As a newbie you have to find a source of food, a safe place to sleep, etc etc or you won't last your first hours of play. This may seem like oooh gritty fantasy but it is really just tedious in practice. After one afternoon of 'you are starving to death' messages and no source of food that I could just buy or even gather, I was dunzo.

Second time I gave it a go was about 2 or 3 years later. This time I joined a clan fairly quickly so I had tons of food, and tons of supplies to use to practice my skills (I made a crafter) and some people who would look out for me. I was working on some crafting while rping with a guy in the clan and finished a shirt, it looked cool! I decided I wanted to put it on. And then here comes the thing that we've discussed on these very boards, the moment where in changing my shirt it wasn't handwaved but instead the dude present said something to my character about her nice tits.

I know some people who LOVE it and that's cool by me. I did not, the reasons above are two glaring examples but there are others, I could go on. The reason it is not my jam is not that I can't handle the 'gritty' atmosphere (their words not mine, I don't see a lot of grit just annoying details) Rather it is not my jam because there's so much focus on things that are wastes of time and less focus on things that are fun for players.

Caveat: Both of these experiences were late 90's early 2000's. A lot may have changed.

Lately when I am stressed and cranky and need a distraction I read YA novels, they don't require quite as much thought but are entertaining. Usually fantasy but sometimes John Green

In that vein I'd recommend Sarah J Mass' 'Court of Thorns and Roses' trilogy. It's not Pulitzer material but is engrossing and fun.

@ganymede said in MU Things I Love:

@gingerlily

MU* Partner: Are you a changeling?
MePC: in paranoid rage turns and strikes for 6L! Oh, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to break half of your ribs!
MU* Partner: Holy shit! I'm glad I didn't ask about your spending habits!

And the day's young.

I guess spending habits are one of the universal 'issues' for couples to debate, across all walks of real and not real life

Mu* husband: "Look we have to talk about your spending habits."

MeChar: What why!?

Mu*husband: "You have spent <X amount> of <currency> in only <short amount of time>

MeChar: "I have not! Wtf! And anyway (unrelated tangent)"

Later today:

RealHusband: What did you just order off of Amazon and how much was it?

RealMe: OMG I HAVE ALREADY HAD THIS ARGUMENT TODAY

@apos said in Silly things you'd been tempted to do on/for a MU*:

@goldfish said in Silly things you'd been tempted to do on/for a MU*:

I'm on the East Coast. For years all my partners were on the west coast. I saw the sun come up many a morning while still posing.

Yeah, there was a time period where I often stayed up all night all the time because my favorite RP partner worked nights and could MU from her slow paced job. Maybe it was silly, but I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Like do it again in a heartbeat if you went back to then in time or do it NOW because like...man I could not stay up all night to rp for the greatest rp on earth because I got old.

@darinelle said in The limits of IC/OOC responsibility:

@arkandel - The way we handle it in Arx is Voices/2nds in command, who act with the voice of the faction leader. Spread the love and share the burdens, because it shouldn't and can't always be THAT ONE GUY who stands AT THE NEXUS OF ALL DECISIONS. It's not feasible IRL, and it's certainly not feasible in a game.

I think the responsibility if you have someone dependent directly upon you for their arc is a scene once a week. I also think you should never be in a position where more than 3-4 people are directly dependent upon you for their entire arc, esp. when they're different arcs. At that point, then more people need to be involved organizationally.

I like that Arx thing. The voices thing. Spreading out the authority so that the stories don't bottleneck because Joebob (Duke Joebob, I wanna make him fancy) has been awol for work or finals or something. It makes it easier on Duke Joebob, and also more fun for the pople picked to be Voice for Jobbobland since they get to call the shots too. 10/10 thumbs up.

I set goals for myself year-round, so new years resolutions are a time for checking in on those goals but not weighted terribly heavily. Like others have said most of those goals are RL based but hey, I can come up with some MU* related ones.

1. Be chill! If I'm feeling super stressed, don't log in to play unless I am sure that logging in will be fun and escapist.

2. Give people the benefit of the doubt. Over and over again! Things that seem or feel malicious often are not, so instead of assuming the worst, just assume the best.

3. Focus on making sure that I'm chasing my own fun and providing fun for others in equal measure. Ideally those both just happen without extra effort put in but put the effort in until I get better at it.

4. Stay away from gossip and negativity. Nothing takes the wind out of my sails faster than hearing people gossip about other players OR about staff OR about a game. It makes me super frustrated sometimes, because once I've heard all those negative feelings I can't unhear them, and then it gets super uncomfortable. Like do I keep playing with someone who I know has a super low opinion of staff/the game/etc that I am playing too? That's not much fun. I want to play with people who love the game they play on, and the toxic grumpy gossip does nothing but make ME feel grumpy too, and resentful sometimes of the players who have been kvetching. It's basically just a huge buzzkill, the same way hearing co-workers kvetch about the building or the admin or central office kills my "Lets touch young lives and make the future better wooot!" moments.

Thats all I have so far!

I came across this today and thought MSB readers might have feelings on the topic. SO

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/your-online-secrets/201712/video-gaming-disorder-is-now-mental-health-condition

Enjoy!