Posts made by ixokai

@Kestrel said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

So far this is probably the biggest source of MUSH-related culture-shock for me, I think. I had my character react a certain way to something they found off-putting, for very IC reasons (though I found it great) — and received an OOC apology for the off-putting behaviour, with a clarification that it wasn't intended to be off-putting. Is this normal? Do many MUSHers have an aversion to conflict-based RP, and/or take the stance that character behaviours should be altered to cater to harmony with other characters? I mean beyond the basic, 'we need an excuse to stay in a scene together'.

I think there is a certain segment of the population who has an aversion to conflict RP, but there's a larger segment who has been playing in this medium for decades and carries baggage with them. We've all gone through intense bouts of angst and drama OOCly, and we all have developed triggers.

Some of this baggage involves people who do not properly respect the IC/OOC boundaries, and who take something bad happening IC as a personal affront OOC. Over time we have grown habits to try to mitigate this, and one such habit (I have it) is to go out of my way to express that the conflict is purely IC.

@Wretched said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@ixokai said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

Powerposing is NEVER OKAY. Never. Under any circumstances.

Let me change that to 'Powerposing /without permission/ is not okay.' Sometimes in a scene I will ask 'hey, can I powerpose for a sec here' usually with a hint of what I want to do, or I am simply in a scene with someone I know well and I know where the boundaries are. Sometimes a bit of a powerpose will smooth things along rather than going back and forth 4 more times, and save another half hour of RP, so you can move things along.

That's, IMHO, by definition, not powerposing. You've got permission. The essential component of powerposing is you are removing the ability of another player to decide their character's actions and reactions.

By asking permission out of band, you are not removing their ability to decide. You've simply used a different channel to make sure they have made the decision of their character's response.

Let me first define "metaposing" as I mean it, as its something defined by people as different things.

Metaposing is the stuff that doesn't happen between quotes, and which does not describe a characters actions, appearance, or other overt outward displays.

You linked to my random bitch and said its about different in metaposing etiquette, but I disagree: my bitch was about powerposing, IMHO. Powerposing and metaposing are different. Powerposing is about writing about another character in such a way as their player's ability to choose their reactions is taken away.

Powerposing is NEVER OKAY. Never. Under any circumstances.

Metaposing is okay, in a limited degree, provided its about your own character or entertaining in general. It is NOT okay if its used as a vehicle to insert OOC commentary about other characters that those characters do not have an IC means to interpret and thus react to.

A certain amount of metaposing adds to atmosphere and entertainment, and as long as its not wielded against other characters, its fine. However, when its used to snark them and get in a comment that can't be responded to IC, its unfair and not okay.

Whoa whoa whoa.

@Cobaltasaurus said in Angel's Legacy: Seeking Help!:

To be open and honest, however. I do not like being tossed back and forth, the way things have gone down. I feel like you're both going: "It's my way or I'll abandon you Cobalt!" Or worse: "I know Cobalt will do things my way."

Neither of those were intended at all.

I was speaking as a player. As a player, I am not interested in contributing to the type of thing @Chime seems to want to do. I'm not against her doing it, and if you like it, I'm not against you doing it. I don't care about the wiki very much: I wanna play a fucking Angel.

i can haz angel? u can haz ixokai.

That is a truism.

The kind of wiki @Chime seems to want, I just am not interested in. So, as a player, I would do whatever was absolutely required of me and ignore it otherwise, and then go play my character.

That's all I was saying.

I'm a person with her own thoughts and opinions.

Didn't even kinda think to suggest otherwise, however, I am also a person with my own thoughts and opinions, and all I expressed were exactly those things.

That said:

@ixokai said in Angel's Legacy: Seeking Help!:

Didn't even kinda think to suggest otherwise, however, I am also a person with my own thoughts and opinions, and all I expressed were exactly those things.

However one thing I did NOT like was the appearance of a site-admin pressuring on what you wanna do, so I offered an alternative. That's all. Take it, leave it. Your decision, I'm not invested either way.

(I don't begrudge a site admin deciding what he/she wants to host, but in today's climate, that shouldn't be a factor in your decision of what you want to run). There's plenty of options, some extremely good and free, so there's no obligation to go with any particular opinionated site admin if you decide otherwise. My 'hey I know someone else' was: if you decide otherwise, I know a guy. Not, 'pick me or we will fite'

@Cobaltasaurus said in Angel's Legacy: Seeking Help!:

Way before @Coin did it on Eldritch (and yes I'm a little bit salty that Eldritch gets hailed as the first MU* to do this), I had set standards on Darkwater for how wikis could look. Hell I even made it so Reno has a standard for how the wikipages were supposed to look (though this got tossed to the wayside somewhere along the way)-- having gotten disgusted with the mismash from HM. Even if I go with MediaWiki, pages will have standards and will be required to look like they match the rest of the wiki. I like the creativity of some pages. But I also prefer a clean wiki that doesn't give me whiplash when going from one page to the next.

See I got no problem with standards. Even on Eldritch, which had some of the hardest rules of conformity, (maybe unfairly said so), I made some significant changes on my character pages, including personal templates (includes, or whatever, I'm not gonna argue terminology here) and my page fit the theme and yet was distinct and original.

Its not an either/or: chaos or conformity. But it does take a willingness of staff to step in and say: no, you have gone too far.

@Chime said in Angel's Legacy: Seeking Help!:

@ixokai Thank you for so eloquently reminding me why I've largely left this community; we're looking to create different things entirely. I wish you (and probably @Cobaltasaurus) the best with that.

I don't know what to do with this remark. It feels like you're taking me not agreeing with what you want to do personally and that somehow I have given offense, and if so, I apologize. I was simply saying what interested me about wikis on mushes.

On mushes, I consider the wiki a multimedia creative alternate-path of expressing my character. Your vision seemed incompatible. Therefore, I'm just not interested in doing yours. That doesn't make yours wrong. It means I just don't want to do it. That's all.

@Chime said in Angel's Legacy: Seeking Help!:

I don't want to code html and css in my hobby, I'm annoyed enough I have to do it in my day job. I'm not entirely sure I agree with the idea of 'uniform' being a good thing. Having a nice default uniform look is good, but I really enjoy some of the creative stuff players have made out of their wikis.

MarkDown is a lot easier than html and a lot easier than MediaWiki.

Are you able to post to this forum? Congrats, you're using MarkDown.

Hi. I know what Markdown is.

I believe in there being a firm separation between content and presentation. Presentation is the responsibility of the game owner (@Cobaltasaurus and anyone she designates) and content is the responsibility of all the players, collectively.

Content here means words. If you must use a picture to define your character, you're doing it wrong. If you must use 120pt blinking bright magenta on lime green Comic Sans to express your character, a lot of us would rather you didn't.

Sorry. If this is your philosophy on a wiki, I have no interest in it at all. I hope any content that gets put on it is done in an automated fashion and pulls out of the mush because I'm not interested in contributing.

You have to show a lot of positive to make that seem worth-while.

No, I don't. I'm done with media wiki. Host it elsewhere.

Oh, that's your right.

@Cobaltasaurus I know a guy who hosts several games and is quite happy to host mediawiki and mush and... whatever else. Super reliable and helpful. Want his email address?

@TNP said in Angel's Legacy: Seeking Help!:

@ixokai said in Angel's Legacy: Seeking Help!:

Having a nice default uniform look is good, but I really enjoy some of the creative stuff players have made out of their wikis.

I don't. Half the time when someone gets 'creative' I can't even see half their page because it won't fit on my screen. A wiki is supposed to be a resource but few players alter their templates with other people viewing it in mind.

The thing is, if it is "merely" a resource, I don't think people will put much effort into it.

If it feels like work, I won't do it. I'll just throw up a picture and then ignore it forever after.

If, instead, the wiki is an alternate, parallel creative outlet, then between RP, while waiting for approval, during idle time, I might go play on the wiki and make my page more interesting.

Yes, some people go too far and make stuff inaccessible. That's when Staff steps in and says don't do that.

@Chime said in Angel's Legacy: Seeking Help!:

@ixokai said in Angel's Legacy: Seeking Help!:

Man I hate you and everything you stand for. (Okay no I don't, really, but I do :))

Mediawiki's includes and tables and templates are a god-send for creative-wiki'ing and if you reduce my character's wiki to just some markdown text on a thing I'd just not bother contributing, as a player.

I'm still looking at alternative wiki technologies, as yes-- I understand the work-flow of game wiki use very well.

Markdown actually has tables already-- but they work best as tables, rather than a layout crutch. Arguably, that's a very very good thing.

So:

• Templates: These are a nice feature. MediaWiki templates are shitty. We can do better.

Never seen a wiki system do better, and I've looked, but not recently, admittedly. MediaWiki Templates are incredibly powerful. I don't care one way or the other about the syntax, its the functionality that is key.

• Tables: We have tables for tabular data. Tables for page-layout are wrong and should not work; we can use CSS'd div/span for that and it helps promote a cleaner, saner, more uniform look.

I don't want to code html and css in my hobby, I'm annoyed enough I have to do it in my day job. I'm not entirely sure I agree with the idea of 'uniform' being a good thing. Having a nice default uniform look is good, but I really enjoy some of the creative stuff players have made out of their wikis.

• Includes: These are purely a special case of templates, so we can ignore it if we have a working template system.

I disagree. Templates are, if anything, a special case of inclusion. With inclusion, for example, I can divide a page into several sub-components for easier editing and management, and then include them together into a final main page.

I really like doing that, especially when my wiki gets complicated.

More importantly, I can do this all on a per-page basis, instead of it being a site-wide thing.

Are you trying to do anything not addressed by that? I believe strongly in giving people the creative tools they need to further MUSHing as a modern, collaborative literary form.

I'm not really trying to do anything, I'm usually fairly idle as a wiki-er. But I really like some of the work others do. And like sharing and borrowing that and sometimes adding those bits to my page, sometimes improving them and changing them. Mediawiki is a very powerful platform. Its hard to go against it feature for feature and come away not looking weak.

Especially if you're now putting a burden on all the players of learning a new platform and how to bend it to their will. You have to show a lot of positive to make that seem worth-while.

@icanbeyourmuse said in Angel's Legacy: Seeking Help!:

@ixokai Everything has a Cultural difference. You could go to Texas and Las Vegas and you would have a world of difference in cultures. Same with British Columbia and Alberta. While still having similarities.

Eh.

Americans are exposed to the variety of Americanisms via television and other media.

Just saying. Every non-US mush I've ever been on has been filled with Americans or people being patently ridiculous.

@icanbeyourmuse said in Angel's Legacy: Seeking Help!:

How can you be Canadian Wrongly? I don't think my behavior is any different than an American and I have been Canadian all my life. Is there something I do differently than, say, Cobalt? (I think she is American)

I still don't know what PNW is.

Pacific North West.

If you think you, as Canadian, have no culture distinct from American culture then you're the first Canadian I've ever met who has thought that. But I'm not an expert on Canadian, that's sort of hte point.

@Chime said in Angel's Legacy: Seeking Help!:

@Cobaltasaurus said in Angel's Legacy: Seeking Help!:

• Wiki help: (I'm likely just to recycle my Darkwater box. So. Uh, wiki needs a complete overhaul/reset).

If you're talking about the dw instance I'm hosting, it might be a good time to just shut down that wiki and move to some other wiki provider? -- or, alternatively, different wiki software. I'm extremely keen on removing all PHP, and mw syntax is an abomination anyway.

If no one has any handy recommendations I might be able to throw together a quick quasi-wiki using markdown syntax, but surely there are things like that out there that are mature enough to take on mediawiki.

Man I hate you and everything you stand for. (Okay no I don't, really, but I do :))

Mediawiki's includes and tables and templates are a god-send for creative-wiki'ing and if you reduce my character's wiki to just some markdown text on a thing I'd just not bother contributing, as a player.

@Cobaltasaurus said in Angel's Legacy: Seeking Help!:

@icanbeyourmuse said in Angel's Legacy: Seeking Help!:

I'll build whatever you tell me to build. And I can do the vampire place. As long as I have indication to what I need to keep in mind for them I'll spit it out. I am inclined to say go with a small then expand if need be.

Going to tag in @ixokai

You have any thoughts or suggestions on a setting? Other than !PNW?

Honestly, anywhere else but PNW is my thoughts.

The problem with Canada is all your characters will be American or will be Canadian wrongly. I've never been on a game in a non-American place that didn't do that place's culture wrong (or just fill up with Americans).

I also don't like fictional cities because to me they just feel soulless.

Cities I think have a soul: (leaving out NYC and LA for what should be obvious reasons)

• San Francisco
• A supercharged Denver, Colorado (my angel wants a manse up on a snowy mountain what'd that be like!)
• Take the whole Lafayette<->New Orleans area and turn it into a conglomerated metropolis.
• Austin, Texas
• Pittsburg, Pennsylvania is so gonna be my setting for my Buffy game I'm never gonna get around to finishing, and I have what I think is a decent grid done with a +map-- its completely undesc'd, but I would donate the structure of the grid if you want. But, the City of Bridges, with some rad art deco stuff going on.

Come on, anything, anything but PNW again. Please.

I mean I'll play the fuck out of being an Angel in the PNW if I have to, but I'm just bored with it as a setting.

@surreality said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

@Kanye-Qwest Nicely done! That is really, really great work!

Indeed. I'm curious what you used to make it?

@Cobaltasaurus said in GuildHunter game? (Angels, Vampires):

I wonder how many people would even be interested in playing vampires when Angels are available. XD

Personally, I find the idea of a vampire who is still in service to an Angel interesting. Sorta like a ghoul without the stupid.

Of course first I'm playing my Angel with wings of cobalt blue that fade to black tips ... (Cobalt blue is my favorite color. This is not me sucking up. My apartment is FULL of cobalt blue glassware)

@Cobaltasaurus said in GuildHunter game? (Angels, Vampires):

@ixokai said in GuildHunter game? (Angels, Vampires):

@Cobaltasaurus said in GuildHunter game? (Angels, Vampires):

I'm currently on the fence about whether or not to allow special vampires.

I'm still unclear what constitutes "special vampires".

Basically a vampire with traits that are inherently non-human. Venom for example have fangs and ... well venom. Nazir being a Chimera-vampire of a human and white-tiger, who can shift between forms. Things that like. Versus say a vampire with telepathy. Or empathy.

Personally, I would like vampires to be less then just... everyone's the same. But I can see why you wouldn't want special bloodsucking snowflakes all over, too.

@Cobaltasaurus said in GuildHunter game? (Angels, Vampires):

I'm currently on the fence about whether or not to allow special vampires.

I'm still unclear what constitutes "special vampires".

Sounds interesting. I too am wondering at the system, though you mentioned FATE or the FAE iteration (personally I prefer FATE, but FATE is hardly a single system and more a toolbox for making a system, ISTM).

Only meh is gee, yet another game in the PNW.

I've not been the most reliable person lately on helping, but depending on what you need, I might be able to pitch in.

Its been a very, very, very long time since I've played an angel. Angels are my thing. I don't even mind if these aren't heavenly angels.

I can play an Angel? I play your game. I don't really care about the details.

I can haz Angel means u can haz ixokai.

That said, you'd need to write up a lot of theme information because I really don'ot want to read a book.

The former. A character is a little bit of multiple personality disorder developing in my brain, to the point where I can almost imagine hearing my best characters talk and express what they'd do in any given situation.

The more I indulge that little bit of insanity, the more I get to know the character, and either I like it and let it keep growing, or I don't, and I do a mental flush and send it into oblivion.

@Sunny said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

Bah. Just because I throw a fit doesn't mean I won't actually play on these other things.

You're sensible and work through these things. Some people aren't.

This game sounds pretty much awesome and I will try it, though heavily coded isn't generally my cup of tea.

Generally speaking, heavily coded isn't, BUT, they seem to be wanting to take cues from MUSHes that the coding isn't for RP things but instead stuff like crafting and direct combat, which I'm more okay with.