Best posts made by Lisse24

@Steven-Universe Yeah, we know tons of alts and lots of spheres peter out quickly, I'd be interested in a game with multiple spheres and restricted alts to see how that fares.

@Ganymede said in How to Change MUing:

@Rook said in How to Change MUing:

1. Narrow the roleplay of all players on the game, giving all characters reason to interact with all others.

On WoD games, the races are segregated because they have different aims. The Reach was a bit different, but every race still has their own power structures and politics. I agree that things should be narrowed, but I believe it should be narrowed to single-race games. That will help keep the setting tight and the tropes relevant.

Meh, I'd allow 2 spheres (+mortals) if the focus was on how the spheres are interacting with each other. Any bigger than that and I'm dubious. I'd point out that this is basically where F&L is right now. Sure, it has spheres besides changeling and vampire, but they're not really active.

@Wizz Yup, that's my gripe with it. It skipped the step where we thought the Stark children could work together, but were in doubt over whether they would or not.

Obviously someone needs to work on a new option for a L&L game.

I think it might help to prevent siloing and the fracturing of the playerbase, but I'm not convinced that it will and I think there are better ways to accomplish the same purpose, so I'm not sold on the idea.

@Ghost Maybe someone should try a game that has a wiki, but not player pages. I dunno if it would be successful, but I'd like to see what effect it has.

@Gilette said in How to Change MUing:

@Lisse24

I'm only singling you out because you volunteered, and what I'm about to say is probably arising from never working a job where I could login somewhere.

Isn't this a problem? Whenever I log into somewhere and see a WHO list populated by people who've been idle for hours, days, maybe even weeks, I really do start to wonder why they're even online. To me, when I log in, I log in with a purpose: I want to RP very soon.

Couldn't this sort of breed a culture where the idea isn't logging in to play so much as it is just logging in out of habit?

Well, I'm rarely 'idle for hours.' If I'm logged into a game, I'm generally available for RP, and I'll chat with people on channels and such. I just won't sit in public or page people trying to work up a scene (unless I have a pressing concern. If I page you you for RP while I'm working there's a Reason). In other words, I'm there to RP, I'm just putting the onus to be aggressive about it on someone else's shoulders for that period of time.

That being said, yes, seeing a +where full of people sitting alone in rooms, or a mob huddled in the OOC room with no one on grid can be offputting. Arx combatted this by not showing those people. I have mix feelings about this, but that's one way to combat that.

@darinelle
https://www.tellyourbosstofuckoff.com/
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@Arkandel said in L&L Options?:

What should be mechanized is tracking the resources available to players because that's something political games in general have often been very unsuccessful at. PCs throw money around like it's inexhaustible, access to troops - or their quality - is up in the air, influence over NPCs and regions tends to be a kind of... fuzzy matters altogether, yet those are absolutely things MU* can be better at tracking down automatically for players.

If that happens then characters can actually be forced to make interesting choices which to me is the heart of what drives politics as well as good gameplay.

Completely agree, which was why my first point was that the game needs to have systems to support political RP. I have opinions on what some of these systems should be, but we may be wandering away from L&L at this point.

@popes I've been looking closer at Ares code and at Ruby and am hardly a coder myself, but it seems like something I could probably handle.

Of course, this may just be ignorance talking.

I find that I'm enjoying myself when my character is meaningfully involved in a plot that makes progress/has a new development every 1-2 weeks.

Meaningfully involved: I mean that my character is making contributions to the outcome of the plot and not just sitting in on meetings/watching other people make decisions. I also separate out Big Battles where my character is just one of many and her contributions don't count. Court scenes don't count. Attending council meetings where my char is in My characters actions have to count.

A plot: Generally I mean one. One plot at a time. I'm a very linear person, I can't help it. I get stressed when I have to divide my attention between too many things, which is why I can generally only maintain one character on a game at a time. However, I have been able to maintain a personal development plot, along with a group plot, so it's not impossible, I just don't want to have too much shoved on me at once. Neither do I want to be sitting around twiddling my thumbs and feeling like I have nothing to do or no way to contribute. I've left games for both extremes. Heck, I've left a game for feeling both ways at the same time.
I have no preference about the scope of the plot. Big or small doesn't matter so much as the way that my character affects it and the way that it affects my character (See above).

Progress every 1-2 weeks: Pacing is hard. Something needs to happen regularly so that you keep investment and feel like things are moving forward. However, if things progress too quickly, you don't have time to RP about it and make good decisions. For me, personally, I've found one development every 1-2 weeks to be the sweet spot where I regularly have something new to share, but don't start feeling overwhelmed. Of course, this varies. If my char is pulled out of all RP while the plot is going on, I want developments more often. If the next step requires a lot of thought and planning, slowing down or breaking into smaller chunks is preferable (This is why I appreciated Firan's Res-day system, even if I didn't always like the resolutions).

This of course, is just what I prefer. It doesn't quite answer what you were asking, but I hope it's helpful!

@ganymede You have my sympathies, and, for what it's worth, my prayers as well. If there is anything I can do for you in the RL or MU space, please let me know? Including a link to meal coordination, if you're getting that going.

Making Arx stick this time.

@RDC I think the problem with writing little asps, is that when fulfilling them creates a job, it doesn't feel like something that you should be checking off every scene or so. Something that creates a job gives the impression that it should be bigger.

Also, there's information asymmetry. As staff, you see everyone's aspirations, what's getting fulfilled and what's sitting, a player doesn't see all that information. They don't know what makes a good asp or a hard to fulfill asp because they just don't have access to enough information.

@Darinelle said in How much plot do people want?:

@Misadventure said in How much plot do people want?:

I like plot, but I like subsequent consequences even more. A plot is fodder for scenes. Results are fodder for thinking and getting in tune with the actual goals of the game.

SOOOOO much this. I don't like plots that don't give the people involved in them some way to go RP about it. Not just in a "look what I did" way but also an "and this changed <these things about my world or my character or my understanding or life as we know it" plots. If the goal of a MU is roleplay, then plots should enhance and encourage RP. If you make your plots an end to themselves with nothing connected, then what's the difference between your plot and a repeatable daily quest in WOW?

Completely agree with @Darinelle and @Misadventure! Their answers are better than mine was!

Plus, I think this is what MUs do well. MUs allow for this type of RP where other formats don't and I think we should be leaning into that as a hobby.

Coworkers who do not realize that spam email is spam and take it seriously, especially since it's so transparent.

"Hey! Your blog on shoes was wonderful! You should add a link to easycollegeessaywriter.com/buyouressays. I think it would go great with the topic!" inevitably ends up forwarded to me, leaving me to explain again and again and again why we're not going to add that link anywhere on our site.

@Pyrephox said:

Hee. That one doesn't lay at your feet. I got Real Lifed before the game closed!

And thank you, @Lisse24 - who were you?

Man, you're asking me to remember character names? Bah. But, I believe you knew me as Kara

@RDC said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:

@Lisse24 said in What Types of Games Would People Like To See?:

Also, there's information asymmetry. As staff, you see everyone's aspirations, what's getting fulfilled and what's sitting, a player doesn't see all that information. They don't know what makes a good asp or a hard to fulfill asp because they just don't have access to enough information.

Oh, yes. Definitely. This is why it's staff's job to teach those expectations. It's just not easy to teach "our expectations are really low" after other games (not naming any names) hammer home that passive-aggressive punitive responses are the norm to people acting like games should be fun and pretty easy to play.

Thought about this some more over night, and I actually don't think it's that hard. I think you can clue people by explicitly stating how often you expect asps to be completed and then making sure this information is very visible.

If you want short-term asps to be simple enough that they can complete one nearly every time they scene, say so. If a PC should be able to make progress on a long-term asp every week or two, say so. This will help players frame their asps to better meet your expectations. I still think the fact that short-term asps create a job and have to be manually approved creates a mental block in most players minds, but by loudly declaring that claiming a ton of asps is OK, you can combat that.

Also, today is totally the busiest day of the busiest week of the year for me, but I'll totally pop into NOLA at some point!

@Darinelle @Sparks Can I ask how the focused thing is going for you both on Arx? One of the reasons that I left, probably the main one, was that I couldn't keep up with the main plot, but that plot was so all-encompassing, that I couldn't get people interested in what my char was doing either. In the end, it felt like I was just spinning wheels and the whole experience was pretty frustrating.

Curry. I love a good curry.

@Kireek If they thought you were into every little status boost and not into plot it's because that's the vibe you are giving out. In this thread, I've heard the following things mentioned:

• Admitted to throwing a fit about another character's stats,
• Being enthusiastic enough about recruiting people to your house that it might be offputting (perhaps because it was viewed as being coercive?)
• Complaining about a change made to code because it disadvantaged you, even though the game was in alpha.
• Speaking with others about the support system, with the intent of getting more support requests in for your character - an obvious attempt to maximize a system-in-work for your chars benefit.
• Admitting to "trying to further our faction to the best of our abilities."
• You referring to sides

None of this in isolation is worrying or bad, but when you put it all together, you do get the image of a competitive player going for every last point. Given that the game is still in alpha, and that systems are still in the testing phase and that many systems are designed to be voluntary, surely you can see how you would give the impression that you did?