Seriously people, when is the last time on this board you saw someone threaten to rape someone for their views?
I ask you because seeing that threat in MMORPG's wouldn't even surprise me.
To call this community special in its negativity is a lack of perspective.
@rnmissionrun said in Regarding administration on MSB:
Granted, it's much worse in the MU* community given it's smaller size but I think this is due to the fact that we, as a community, are not well people. It speaks volumes about the state of our community when the only forum for open discussion of MUs and MUing focuses so heavily on vengeance, shaming and WrongFun. It's no wonder there are so few new people coming into the hobby. Between the general toxicity of the community and the craziness of so many of the folks running games, it's a wonder there are any active games left at all.
I take so much issue with this.
"We, as a community, are not well people" <-- checks part of forum Fork you. It has nothing to do with that. What it has to do with is this is an OLD hobby, and the people here are more then likely to have been it in what can be counted in decades.
And oh, the things we have seen.
So we are harsh and skeptical and quick to the gun, because again, oh, what we have seen. In many ways, IMHO, the abuses of this day-- like everything accused about UH-- are almost quaint. Spying on players? Abusive, harassing creepers? This is familiar, old territory. Oh, its BAD, and what you see in this negative realm is us saying SUCK GO AWAY. But I remember much, much worse.
I've seen MUCH worse in the MMORPG community. I've seen doxing, I've seen personal, out-of-community threats, threats of both horrific violence and unspeakable things done to people. For very small issues.
The vast majority of the negativity here will come down to, 'I think you are a fucking idiot', with everyone saying that every way.
If you're really thinking this is a special level of negativity, worse then others, I have serious questions about your experience and history elsewhere.
But this, "Are not well people" thing, ... I can't frame a response that is useful in Mostly Constructive, but if you imagine a F and an Off, you'll get the idea.
@faraday said in Regarding administration on MSB:
@ixokai said in Regarding administration on MSB:
You're painting with a broad brush and assuming that because there is a dark place (MSB's HOg Pit) and a subset of users snark there, there is a culture of negativity everywhere.
I didn't mean to say everywhere. But I have absolutely seen people leave games or start avoiding other players on games based on the negative stuff that goes on here. If you haven't experienced that, I'm glad for you. That doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
... Sure, that happens, because PEOPLE.
People have personality conflicts.
They have misunderstandings.
And yes, some games do get these negative auras that drive people away. I'm not denying it.
I'm saying it isn't all games, and can't be assumed to be the case. I don't even think its the USUAL case.
But it varies.
Staff has a lot (though they don't control it entirely) to say when it comes to the kind of culture a game has.
I've been on games that burned up from the inside out due to culture; and I've been on games which never had a serious drama. It just doesn't "pervade the games too", the MSB Hog Pit/WORA/SWOFA negativity.
That doesn't mean no one has a negative experience. But I deny this pervading negative aura that lays heavy over the hobby.
@faraday Here's the problem I'm having with what you're saying. You're saying this culture of negativity is global and includes the games.
I don't see that.
Sure, MSB and its prior incarnations have huge negative feedback cycles, and while not good, I think they serve a necessary purpose.
That's not the part I take issue with.
Its the statement that it, quote, "pervades the games too" where I go, hold up, wait a moment.
Sure, there's bad games, bad game cultures. But that isn't automatic. I've been on many games, am ON more then one right now, where there is NO HINT of this negative feedback loop that the hog pit includes.
You're painting with a broad brush and assuming that because there is a dark place (MSB's HOg Pit) and a subset of users snark there, there is a culture of negativity everywhere.
I, vehemently, disagree. Breeding a positive culture on a game DOES take an active hand, but its very doable and has been done time and time again. No one's perfect, mistakes will be made, but if the culture leans positive, they'll nod sadly and that'll be that.
@faraday said in Regarding administration on MSB:
I can't in good conscience invite them into a gaming community that is so darn toxic. And I'm not just talking about MSB here, because the same attitude that feeds the Hog Pit pervades the games too.
Its like we're in different worlds entirely. If I saw anything like the Hog Pit on a game I ran, I'd burn it to the ground, shut it down and leave it buried. I don't. I don't even kind of.
Thank god for buspar.
I haven't had a panic attack in two years.
The first thing I do is think up a concept.
Then I look for a picture that rings true.
Then I go through whatever hoops games put me through: writing backgrounds, describing personality, etc, won't help. I endure it to get approved.
Once I'm approved, then I start making the character. Oh, I might have decided some facts before, but a character is real to me when I hear his Voice. I can't do that except in roleplay, and it comes to me sometimes very fast-- the very first scene maybe-- or if it never comes to me, the character is lost.
The Voice is... a segment of my brain which instantly and completely knows whatever it is the character would do in any given situation, without me having to think about it at all. I can imagine myself hearing the character talking, reacting.
@lemon-fox said in Magic, The Earth Way:
I would think of Earth Magic as being Earth Bending, which evolves from Construction, which evolves from Stability which evolves from Form. This would be opposed by Water Magic, which evolves from Destruction, which evolves from Mutability, which evolves from Formlessness. Air would be Movement. Fire would be Alteration.
@Thenomain can correct me if I'm misinterpreting, but I think he's asking Earth, the planet, not earth, the element.
That could be one school of thought on it. Turning the potential to move, to change, into the actuality of it.
Motion, movement, energy. In a way, change: all change is movement.
Feed on the motion around you-- the wind, a river, your own speed (dangerous), and use that to transfer and control another movement. Air elementalism, telekinesis, physical-adept like abilities. Heat is the excitation of molecules: its moving, vibrating fast. Now you have a way to explain pyrokinesis through the power of kineticism.
www.marvel-1963.com (not canon, allows DC and others)
www.mutantgenesismux.com (x-men and brotherhood only)
unitedheroesmush.com (WARNING)
Oh and besides just earth-magic-is-motion, I like to when thinking up magic what it can't do. While I described it having some elemental effects, one obvious thing its no good at is earth elementalism. Which amuses me, as the question is 'what is earth magic'. The world is in motion but its motion is so vast (its spinning on its axis and around the sun, around the galaxy, etc) and so much the foundation of everything, that kineticists can't actually alter it. No flinging stones, causing earthquakes.
@Thenomain
What comes to me after reading that is... magic of the earth is motion.
On a primitive way, you can achieve a lot of elementalism like effects. Control wind, fire. Perhaps controlling water is too much, but standing near a river would be a powerful source of power: take some motion from it and build a storm.
In a more advanced form, combined with machines, instead of fossil fuels, you have cells that are flywheels that get charged up, and the engine slowly leeches motion out of the cell to spin the pistons.
Then get creative: fine and refined uses of motion. What in the world can't be defined in some way by motion?
EDIT:
You could have different applications; some purely martial, for example. Like Shadowrun physical adepts, someone infusing control of their own motion into their fighting style. True adepts could look at a moving system as complex as life and influence it, perhaps.
Anyways, that's what comes to mind reading about your world.
The thing I have difficulty on this question is that... Earth is big as a setting.
There's numerous cultures, both historical and current. Do you mean magic has always been here, so it has to make sense in a historical context, too?
Or does magic change with the times?
Or does magic change with the environs?
In Swift's world, there's a stark difference between magic of nature and magic of cities, for example. Swift is an urban sorcerer. He draws on the magic of cities. The flow of traffic. The meaning of zoning laws. The boundaries of urban life (ie, as I gave example before: you don't get on the subway without a ticket. It says so on a ticket. People, more or less, believe this. Magic monster is coming up at you-- get a ticket, get past the boundary, hold the ticket up! You've now effectively cast a ward against the monster crossing a line that has meaning because people believe it). All these things are utterly mundane, but because people live them, they have a supernatural force.
Now, go into nature. Go into a rural space. Magic is different. The rules are different. There's still magic there, but it follows the patterns and structures of rural life. Druids thrive there.
The idea is that there is no inherent 'earth magic', there's people-magic. Back in Egypt, magic was about words. What you say: what you write. Repetition. These are the essence of spells. People believe them. That creates a ripple through reality and gives truth to the act of casting a spell.
The world moved on: Egyptian magic stopped working because people stopped believing in it, it stopped being part of the rules that people just assumed were true.
But off in Sumeria, maybe they had magic too, that worked different. Because people and life and the order of life was different there.
This is the issue I have with the question, and why I ask for context: Earth is big. Diverse. There's almost nothing universal about it. Magic is life and life is magic, but the life I live in Los Angeles doesn't relate to the life someone might live in New Delhi.
If I were to try to make a general 'Earth' magic, one that had meaning in both the past and the present, in rural and urban contexts.. I am suddenly blank.
I... need context.
Are you saying: If magic were real, on this world we know, what would it be like?
Read: A Madness of Angels, the Matthew Swift novels. By Kate Griffin.
Where the rules of the known world matter, supernaturally: a pass onto the metro is a barrier unstoppable because people accept that barrier.
The magic of Earth is the magic of the structures of people, and calling to the inhabitants of Earth and their beliefs and structures.
@chet said in Incentives for Doom:
Just have an advancement point/experience point system that lets you carry over your experience and rank between characters. Elendor's Mordor faction did this.
I'd be cool with an incentive to play a character with a target on their back.
But keeping XP and rank from one to another I don't like at all; I can't frame precisely why but it seems to turn death meaningless.
@surreality said in Crediting code, systems, etc.:
What responsibilities or courtesies do you think people have regarding crediting the original sources of major game content when they use it on a new game? (By major content, I primarily mean MUX code, game mechanics, wiki code, etc.)
Does this change based on whether credit is requested?
Does it change if the content is modified?
Does this change if the content is modified, and the modifier appears to claim full credit for the work?
(There's no horrible drama inspiring this one, so there's no need to sniff around for one.)
I think a mention in +help/+news credits would be nice.
It absolutely changes if credit is requested; if requested and you don't do it you're a bad person.
If the content is modified but still derived from someone elses work, credit is still due.
If someone derives work from someone else and claims full credit for the work, they are a douchebag.
Remember: Copyright attaches immediately when you put an expression into a fixed form (digital is fine). You don't have to register it, or mark it. You got it. Yeah, mushes are way less formal and we almost never worry about copyrights but that doesn't mean its not an actual factor.
CYA and giving credit is at least wise, even if not needed. (I don't care in the least on my code)
I eye this thread askance. Uncertain.
I eye it and am like: yes? no.
@Tinuviel I feel this completely weird situation in my mind, breaking it.
In one thread we are disagreeing on what is essentially people's claim on the 'boss's time. In this thread we are agreeing that they can fuck off and die.
Both thoughts exist, and coexist, in my head, and its fine. Its just the discussion of both simultaneously which makes me wanna reboot.
This email from my instructor for the new class:
I dunno if I'm being entirely unreasonable here, because its 5am, but like, my firm response to this entire thing is:
Fuck off and die.
Yeah prolly 5am is a factor.
I second NK Jemisin is great. I can't reccommend The Inheritance Trilogy, starting with The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, enough.
All of her stories have very intense and interesting and different worlds. They are very atypical fantasy that don't delve into easy tropes, she has great characters, and while there is a lot of world-building, it doesn't bog down the pacing a lot, imho.