Posts made by Lisse24

So....since we're talking about promotions and stuff.

I work directly under the Executive President of the org. Everyone else in that position has the title of 'Director.' Mine is 'Manager,' even though I'm technically at the same level as the Directors, and don't answer to anyone about my work. Additionally, there's been several new hires who have come in with the Director title.

Now, I'd been meaning to bring up the title thing at my next evaluation, but before that happened we had our all staff retreat where the Pres announced several "promotions" in front of other staff and the board of directors. It was in this way, without any prior discussion, that I received the title change to "Sr. Manager." Yeah, I'm a bit salty about it.

IT companies have horrible documentation and How-To's.

Just sayin'.

@Thenomain Didn't know that existed, but 3 episodes at an hour each doesn't get you much more than a 2 1/2 hour movie. Not having seen this and looking only at IMDB, this series only gives Prof. Bhaer a single episode. You kinda need more than that after the disappointment of Laurie and to show why he's a good foil for Jo. I mean, they might do it well, but I don't think 3 episodes is enough to allow the story to breathe the way it should.

Little Women trailer is up.

Looks good, but kinda really made me want a Little Women TV series, so you can get into the intricacies of the story. Oh well.

@Prototart said in Comic/Superhero Games:

ps for the inevitable "why don't you make one then" i tried and it was v little red hen, like i asked everyone to help me make bread and they were just "oh wow i love bread hmu when it's done" but like little red hen doesn't have an oven so she just went to drink straight chartreuse and watch zombie movies in her underwear

Yup, this adequately describes my experience attempting getting a game going. Sometimes a staff team comes together and sometimes it just doesn't happen, or people flake, or any number of things. So I feel you dude.

Not arguing that! I should have made clearer that I was quoting you because I agree with you. I just wish all the conspiracy talk would tone down.

@mietze Oh sure, there's tons of people who benefit when we go conspiracy theory mad, but I think what Putin's aiming to do puts him into a different category of consideration.

@mietze said in Dead Celebrities 2019:

Honestly, while I am sure there's a possibility it could be a conspiracy, anyone who thinks that also negligence and incompetence on the facility's part wasnt just as or more likely clearly hasn't ever worked in or around corrections.

While I don't know how much negligence was to blame and I don't know if anyone was actively working to shorten Epstein's life, I do know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is one person who has the most to gain from people in our country slinging around and believing in political conspiracy theories. I know this because he's repeatedly tried to ramp up conspiracy theories around political deaths and has been, to a large part, successful.

I'm a bit shocked and dismayed that I seem to be the only person out there that remembers this.

@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've got thoughts:

I want surprises, sure, but I also get stressed on games where OOC communication is discouraged. This is because I know when I'm getting screwed, but I don't know if it's me the player getting screwed or me the character. I will totally go along with my character getting screwed if I know that it's happening, and the player controlling the character doing it is really a cool guy. I think having all players on the same page OOCly is essential to healthy PvP conflict.

Now, I don't need to know all the details about what another player is doing, but I need to know the broad strokes enough to feel comfortable with how things are going down. That means I do need information.

On a game that's not PvP, I struggle to find justification for keeping secrets. Spirit Lake is about the lowest drama game I've ever played on, and sure, some of that is the players, but it's also because everything is just out there. There's also not a problem on that game with people using OOC knowledge ICly. My characters secret is being kept an IC secret an even though anyone could find it out and start acting weird and suspicious about Will, they haven't.

I think when you create a culture of OOC secrecy, you also end up creating a culture of gossip, back-stabbing, and negativity.

When you create a culture of OOC openness, you're empowering your players to make informed decisions and write great, cooperative stories.

To sum up: I think holding some things back for a plot twist or a fun surprise keeps something interesting, however since openness creates a healthier game culture, the default should be to start with the assumption that everything is shared and then mark things as secret as need be.

Alright, I know I'm late to the party on this one, but holy crap, The Expanse is good. It grabbed me right from the pilot, which is really, really rare.

Apparently, Microsoft has changed the way you install Office with the most recent Office 2019 program.

Apparently, in order to install Office 2019, you need to download and install a third program and fuddle with some XML code. It's supposed to be "better," but, like, how?

So, we want to spread out RP, but not rely on XP?

I'm just going to spitball here:
I think this can be accomplished on games that have Action Points or some other method of limiting how much action players get in plot or can do behind the scene. In those games, you can lower the total amount of action points slightly, then either a) have new players accrue points at a faster pace for a set amount of time or b) give new players an extra pool. This gives current players incentive to draw new players into plots and factions.

@Three-Eyed-Crow said in Incentives for RP:

I think the randomscenes on Arx work pretty well for what they're intended to do. The players who abuse it (hello person who was mass-paging the entire newbie list, I still see you) need to be reported but there will always be players who abuse anything and they're the minority.

I don't think it's portable as-is to every game but it seems to generally do the thing it's designed to.

I mean, I'd make slight tweaks to it, but that's what they'd be: tweaks. The tool itself is great at doing what it was designed to do.

@Tinuviel said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

Not necessarily. The majority of my present career is teaching people how to use a tool. If they fail to grasp what I am teaching, it is neither their fault nor the tool's, but my own.

Point. True, but not applicable here, I think.

@Lisse24 said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

This is a fundamental design principal so I don't know why I get push back on it

Because it isn't a design problem, it is a socio-cultural problem. People aren't going to use the new shiny thing if they don't feel the need, no amount of flashing lights and signs pointing at the thing will make them use it. And if eighty percent of people don't feel the need to use a special tool to find their RP, then the twenty percent will only ever find each other.

So, how do you solve that problem then? And no, I don't accept telling someone to keep doing the very thing that's failing them as an acceptable answer.

@Auspice I never said it wouldn't work though! I totally agree that +scenes CAN work the way @Sparks outlined.

I've always been of the opinion that while people do try to game the system, the benefits that new players get from being pulled into RP and meeting a wide variety of people off the bat outweigh any potential 'cheating', but that's a decision game creator's will have to weigh for themselves.

@faraday @Auspice I don't disagree. I think the +wantrp command as it exists is a pretty crappy tool that doesn't provide a lot of information. Again, if people are trying to do a task and we make a change to try and help them do that task, and the change fails, it's not the fault of the people who failed to adapt to it, it's the fault of tool/change we provided which didn't meet their need.

I do think that you can create a game culture where these extra tools are not needed. I think Arx is an excellent example of this. Arx created a game where players are reliant on each other. They've also pushed activity back to the grid, meaning that spontaneous/pick-up RP is easier to find. They've changed the game culture. However, most of the times when we have these conversations, game creators are very resistant to making the changes that Arx made.

@Tinuviel said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

@Lisse24 said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

If players do not make that shift, then it is not their fault and we are asking something unreasonable of them

No. If you provide a tool, and people don't use it, that is the fault of the people not of the tool.

ETA: I also repeat that it will take time for people to adjust to new tools. Cultures take time to change, they just do. There is no magic tool that will appear and suddenly be in use by everyone all at the same time to the same level of competence.

I was going to write a snarky response, but I absolutely agree. People take time to adjust to a new tool and you have to teach them how to use it, and you have to remind people that it's there, by CONSTANTLY pointing to it. By constantly, I mean big huge letters on the wiki: THIS IS HOW YOU FIND RP, daily emits on the game USE THIS, and periodic reminders. But if people know the tool exists and they try to use and STILL have the same problem, then it's not them, it's the tool.

This is a fundamental design principal so I don't know why I get push back on it, except that it's easier to point the finger at every one else than to honestly think over what you're doing, why it doesn't work, and make the changes you need to in order to make it work.

@Auspice said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

@Lisse24 said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

@Auspice.
I agree. +Scenes does give you some of the info you need, but not enough to be able to find RP reliably. It tells you point 1. Who is already RPing, and whether or not you can join that scene, along with a sense of what that scene might be about.

It does not tell you 2 - 3. In other words, you have no clue who's on and isn't RPing but wants to be and what those scenes may be about. So on Ares you need another tool to work in conjunction with +scenes to fill that gap.

It does tell you what those scenes are about (/summary) if people fill it in. The details in scene info can be filled in at any time, but most of us only do so at the end because we aren't yet conditioned to do it sooner.

Yeah, I was agreeing that it does give that info, sorry if that wasn't clear!

@Tinuviel said in If you work hard, son, maybe someday you'll RP:

Do we really need special tools for this, or simply to adapt ourselves to asking about, and for, RP better?

A lot of my Master's Degree talked about creating performance aids or job aids. These are tools that are designed to help a person do a specific task better. When I talk about tools on MUSHes, I am approaching it through that lens. Before designing a new job aid, you're supposed to judge whether it's an individual issue which needs to be addressed with that individual or if it's an issue that many people performing that same task will have an issue with? Clearly, in this case many people are having the same issue, so it's something we should look at further.

Then you ask whether this is a problem where more information is needed. Can you teach someone how to get around the issue? In my judgment, I don't think this is an issue where there's an information deficit.

Then you consider whether you can tweak the already existing environment/culture to reach the desired outcome. As @Sparks points out, Ares' +scene system may already be able to provide the needed information. So for me, the test is whether on Ares people start to make that change, or whether they can be nudged to make that change, shifting the culture so people use +scenes both as a RP-finder and as the conduit of RP. If players do not make that shift, then it is not their fault and we are asking something unreasonable of them. If the shift is not made, then yes, you need to provide a better tool.

On non-Ares games, obviously the issue will still exist. I would encourage pushing people back to the grid, but people are resistant to that culture change. We'll have to consider whether there is a different environmental/cultural change to be made, or whether a tool is needed. At this point, I'm pretty convinced better tools are needed, but if people can tell me what else they can change, I'm willing to hear it.

@Auspice.
I agree. +Scenes does give you some of the info you need, but not enough to be able to find RP reliably. It tells you point 1. Who is already RPing, and whether or not you can join that scene, along with a sense of what that scene might be about.

It does not tell you 2 - 3. In other words, you have no clue who's on and isn't RPing but wants to be and what those scenes may be about. So on Ares you need another tool to work in conjunction with +scenes to fill that gap.