Posts made by OldFrightful

@surreality This thread has been pretty uncomfortable to read. I'm sorry you're going through this but I really don't think this forum can help you figure it out. You've made a lot of vague posts about this in the past, I think, that it seems unlikely things are going to change. If it is affecting your real life, you need to go to real people, whether that means the relevant law enforcement, a therapist or counselor.

The only element you control here is yourself. Get away from the people causing you stress. If that means leaving a game you like because you can't avoid them, that's a small price to pay in the long run for your mental health. The same goes for mutual friends or chat groups. And frankly, I would strongly consider what you get out of this forum VS what affect this forum has on your wellbeing. Your interactions and relationships with the people causing you stress are unlikely to change and they are unlikely to remove themselves from here. Again, you can only control yourself.

Unrelated to TI9, Midas Mode 2 starts tomorrow at 10 AM MDT and continues until October 2nd. Survival guide here and official site here. Midas Mode is an unofficial invitational tournament taking place on a custom map with custom rules. Watch this video if you're interested, it's a better explanation than I can offer.

It's a really, REALLY silly tournament and a lot of fun. It is basically a walking meme, they opened up all heroes, items and map features for purchase; if you bought something, they made a skin or custom effect for it that will be used in game.

For example, if anyone picks Io:

Yes, that's Ana. Also Shrek.

@Selira said in The Esports thread:

Dota 2's grand finales are happening right now. How has this been going? How is it meeting up to expectations, any surprise showups or stomps in the games?

lol, so VERY belatedly yes. The defending champions, OG, won the grand finals against Team Liquid, making them the only team to win TI twice. They are also the only five people to have won TI twice, which is bizarre because there's basically a roster shuffle every year.

OG is known for being VERY goofy and wholeheartedly embrace it; their philosophy is to play their professional games like any other game of Dota and just have fun. This year they had a temporary feature where you could plant a flag that had your steam profile picture on it. The following screenshot is from their first game in the upper bracket this year after they fountain dived Newbee.

One of the most exciting things this year was an unusual hero pick they used to crush a number of games. If you're a League player and haven't played Dota before, you might not know how different hero scaling and design can be. 'AP' doesn't exist and there are only a few abilities in the game that scale with a hero's stats. In other words, levels are more important for spell damage than items. As for design, most conventional supports in League have ultimates and abilities designed around enabling their team (CC, healing, buffs).

That is not the case in Dota. Some of the highest damage abilities are on supports heroes. In some matches, they can singlehandedly win a team fight or win the game. Most of them can be effectively played as a mid or solo laner, they just usually aren't because items aren't as effective on them.

This year, Ana (their position 1, the equivalent of an ADC) wanted to play position 1 Io. This is Io.

Io is literally a floating ball of light. He does not have eyes, hands, or feet. He cannot speak, so he communicates with the world by beeping and booping his emotions. His job, basically all he does as a hero, is tether himself to an ally unit so he can buff them, heal them or teleport them across the map for a short duration. He has one damaging ability, which summons a few orbs that float around him and explode on contact for light damage. He's a fantastic support and has only ever been played as one in professional games. He does not scale.

Every game OG picked Io for Ana, they put all their focus on ensuring he could get gold and experience. Every hero in Dota can buy Aghanim's Scepter, which gives them a unique upgrade to one of their abilities. When Io gets Aghanim's Scepter, the balls just spawn passively around him every few seconds. If he hits level 15, he can get a talent which gives the balls a small damage boost. Support Io can never afford Scepter and the damage talent is just there to keep the ability relevant.

But if he can hit level 15 ahead or at the same time as the other position 1/2 AND have his Scepter upgrade, the damage is basically impossible to deal with. The first game Ana picked it, everyone assumed they were picking on their opponent for being a weaker team. The second game he picked it, everyone realized it was going to be a reoccurring thing and NO ONE had prepared for it. A lot of the pro players actually spammed position 1 Io on days they didn't have games, trying to get a grip on what it was strong at and how they could counter it.

OG did a lot of silly things with it, I think all but one of their games ended within five minutes of Ana getting the scepter/level 15 - even one where they were down 20k gold (which is a LOT) in team networth AFTER winning.

As a consequence of Ana showcasing position 1 Io, the hero's pick rate in pub games rose dramatically and his win rate mirrored that. Except you know, in parallel because pub players aren't pro players. Ana did the right thing and issued a public apology for ruining so many games.

After TI they nerfed Io into the ground. The end.

Other than that, all but 3 out of the 115 heroes in Dota were picked or banned in the tournament, which I think is pretty neat and represents what I love about the game, its balance.

If you like League but haven't given Dota a shot, try to catch some of the International games August 20-25 (this year they're hosting it in China, so VOD might be easier). They can get pretty wild with how deep the game is, with the hero balance strong enough that there's usually only a handful of the 110~ not picked during the tournament. The competition is healthy, too; in nine years there hasn't been a single repeat champion, and not for lack of qualifying.

It's also looking like the prize pool will be $32+ million.

I'm streaming Dead by Daylight regularly if anyone wants to drop in!

@thesuntsar said in Arx: @clues:

@oldfrightful I'm pretty sure becoming one/fighting one/obtaining an army of them would solve a lot of my problems.

This is the instrument of your destruction. Beware.

@thesuntsar I will kill you.

Theories are tricky. I've written concise ones that (I feel) relay all the relevant information, which tend to result in anyone who reads it having 4-5 questions - which in turn kind of defeats the point of a theory for me, because I'm already doing 2 to 5 scenes a night and don't really have the AP or time to share clues and fill in the blanks for everyone. A lot of people don't like the longer ones. I've taken to just writing my theories out as lectures and arranging events to talk about them/get people to chain share the clues and that works pretty okay for my usual purposes.

I'm definitely apprehensive over the idea of tying them to org briefings, since there's no guarantee the person writing the theory will actually have sensible context in the first place. There are some BIZARRE ideas floating around out there, and no werewolves are not the solution to every plot in the game please gosh leave werewolves alone leave them alooooone.

I don't think there's a really good way to contextualize clue briefings, but I think it would help if there were more organizational tools for it.

Moreover, once they exist on their own to be shared about the context, circumstance, and so on of that original investigation is generally lost. And then all these factors put together leaves you with this old RPG saw in semi-fresh memetic form:

Also this, a lot. I'm pretty concerned with the 'rumor' system they've been talking about (being able to get clues lots of other characters have) since there's definitely no context coming with those.

Addendum: I really think someone should kill the heck out of the briefing perm and make it rank 2+ or 3+ only. I also don't think it would be a bad thing if briefings were removed entirely. Cool idea, great in moderation, not super practical.

Criminal (Investigative 'true crime' journalism! Interview heavy. Starts off w/some murders, but quickly moves into bizarre and interesting crimes/law bending. A++++)
King Falls AM (Radio hosts dealing with supernatural in small town America, 80:20 comedy/drama + personal favorite)
Crimetown (On hiatus rn, but the one available season is an interesting look at Buddy Cianci, super corrupt mayor of Rhode Island w/mob ties)
Pod Save the World (US foreign policy hosted by Obama's National Security spokesdude)
Stuff You Should Know (Two hosts examining a wide range of topics)
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know (Conspiracy nuts, mysteries, etc!)
NoSleep (Creepypasta readings)
ID1OT with Chris Hardwick (Celebrity interviews)
Last Podcast On The Left (Comedians being extremely offensive about crimes, mysteries, etc)
Crime in Sports/Small Town Murder (Comedians being extremely fucking offensive about ridiculous crimes)
Casefile True Crime (HOSTED BY AN AUSTRALIAN his accent is so good ahhhhhh)
Critical Role (D&D played by professional professional voice actors, just started new season)
The Vanished (True crime on missing persons)
Sword and Scale (Probably the best produced true crime podcast, host prone to overstating things)
Thinking Sideways (Irreverent unsolved mysteries)
Astonishing Legends (Irreverent unsolved mysteries)
Undisclosed (Wrongful convictions)
Serial (Wrongful convictions done by investigative journalist Sarah Koening, finished now but really well done)
S-Town (Looking into a wrongful conviction, produced by the same team as Serial)
Black Tapes (Horror docudrama)

(i can go on <.<)

@kanye-qwest it's a serious question

always dog actor???

Also he'd probably tell you that one of the staff members in 1995 really liked Alien and literally the only forest your character conceivably knows about is filled with Totally Not Aliens monsters.

(totally not an alien, this is a kryl, do not believe anyone who tells you otherwise)

@Ortallus He could tell you or just link you this helpfile, which would be the equivalent, and this map for a rough idea. These are both things a newbie could reasonably stumble upon too, it's not very hard to find on the site. It's not actually secret information. When he says 'the digs' he probably means things like lairs, secret watering holes, super exact directions, etc. And like I said in my last post, it is super easy to learn about those things ICly. Your character would not necessarily know about them for being a 40 year old hunter, because a 40 year old hunter probably doesn't know everything there is to know about the super dangerous world. They got to 40, after all!

God save the poor soul who point outs everyone is just saying 'if you don't like it FINE but here am I arguing every point and you better drop it instead of retorting, WAIT YOU RETORTED, how dare' ad nauseam.

Mommy, daddy, please stop fighting. I love you both very much even if I don't see myself playing Arm ever again. It is okay to agree to disagree when the conversation hasn't gone anywhere in 12 pages. Having the last word isn't worth that much.

I do want to comment on this one particular thing though, since I think this post didn't really get a balanced perspective:

@arkandel said in Armageddon MUD:

@evilcabbage said in Armageddon MUD:

sure, but by that same token just because you roll into the game as a 40 year old veteran of hunting does not mean we should have to give you knowledge, because you the player haven't even done anything to earn that.

You (which I assume means 'staff') don't need to give anyone anything. What players have 'earned' is up to the game; some allow more experienced characters to be rolled, some not so much. The one caveat here is that it needs to be universal - if you went and told person A that they haven't earned their stripes so they can't be a veteran, but went ahead and approved person B's veteran character then it'd be a big no-no.

Either way you have got to make it clear what expectations are from newly rolled characters' skill level. It shouldn't be trial and error (especially if your players will get the impression it's subjective, erroneously or not), this sort of thing ought to be clearly stated ahead of time.

you just jumped into a world that you are unfamiliar with, in a land you don't understand yet as a person, and you want to start at like, the height of a career.

By nature newcomers to games don't know much about what's going on, but unless you only roll newcomer characters as well then the latter's IC experience will be greater than their players. For instance if I rolled a peasant on Arx, knowing nothing about Arx OOC, my character will still know way more than I do about the world. You can't escape that fact, even though a well documented friendly web site for your MU* can certainly help.

but i'm personally not going to tell you where to find ginka fruits or where to get such and such shell that sells for like two thousand coins because it's so ridiculously rare. there's things you have to do yourself, you have to make mistakes and learn from them.

You get to choose what you tell players, sure. It's your prerogative.

if you roll in as a new player into the game, you have to take into consideration this: can i, as a new player, believably portray that i am, in fact, a 40 year old hunter?

A better expectation to have is this: "Am I, as a new player, allowed to roll a 40-year old hunter?" If you make your game's rules what they need to be, ensure they are visible and keep them fairly applied universally then no one gets to complain; they might choose to not play there, that's their prerogative, but you'd have done everything from your end to help them make an educated choice.

Armageddon started off as an RP-lite DIKU (class-based) hack and slash. So there's no skill allocation. With one basic exception (you can do a special application for very minor skill boosts), everyone comes in around the same level. The only advantage a veteran player has against a newbie if they both roll in as grizzled 40-year-olds is OOC experience, which isn't a thing you can feasibly police or restrict. Neither character has the coded skill to immediately run off and explore the world. The area around the main city is fairly open with only a handful of 'secrets', and I say 'secrets' because while you may be discouraged from sharing them OOCly, you will find them out pretty quickly if you interact with other players.

My experience with seeing 'clearly clueless newbie' usually resulted in them getting immediate help or someone going out of their way to ICly take them under their wing, btw, so I don't think the 'dropped into the world like a helpless baby and left to fend for self in wilds' picture that some people are drawing is really accurate. YMMV but I would confidently say it's been the norm for a long time. Really dangerous, lawless areas tend to be clearly marked if you're paying attention to your surroundings. The areas where people might readily jump to PVP tend to be remote and thus difficult for a new player to stumble into.

Furthermore, the game probably has the best documentation of any running MU. Like, really, go take a look at the site if you haven't. It gives new players plenty of information if they care to use the resources available to them. This includes a big button on the front page that says 'LIVE HELP!'. When I was on the helper team, there was almost always 2-3 people on it ready to chat OOCly about whatever non-secret thing.

Now that said, lemme reiterate my first post:

I played it for about 12~ years off and on. I don't think it'll really appeal to most of the crowd here, but if you're okay with the above caveats and up for trying something new, it's worth a shot.

Full disclosure, the reason I quit is because I knew too much about magic, mechanics and the world. Without mystery and uncertainty I no longer found it immersive, and that immersion is what made it fun for me.

I really don't think Armageddon will appeal to most MUSH players. The cultures are very different and that's okay. Best of luck to anyone who does try it! My advice is to play for the trees, not the forest.

@kanye-qwest your face is wrong wanna argue about it for 8 pages?

I don't see any difference. Multiple people have said A, multiple people have said B, nobody is going to change their mind. You have done all you can to assuage the few people here who might try Arm. It's dumb to keep arguing about it.

I HAVE DONE THAT THING I MENTIONED EARLIER, though, so that's the last I'll post about it!

@Lithium @Wretched inb4 @Pandora storms in, but Haven isn't an RPI at all and has never been one. It pretty readily embraces some OOC ideas you wouldn't find in an RPI like ye old SoI, Armageddon, Harshlands of yore, the very dead Parallel/Atonement. It's probably a dead MU sub-genre at this point unless Japheth ever finishes LabMUD's codebase.

@thugheaven said in Armageddon MUD:

The argument has been new players are punished for mistakes and no they aren’t. If that’s the circular argument then yes it will continue to rage on, because the people that play now say it doesn’t happen.

Here's the actual issue though, this is one of the main arguments being repeated in the thread:

@evilcabbage said in Armageddon MUD:

you might call someone the wrong title - generally they'll correct you. it might be mean, the way they do it, but they will correct you

@kanye-qwest said in Armageddon MUD:

ok but why though

Like, that does not sound welcoming. None of what you said sounds welcoming to someone new to the game, except that someone might deign to answer ooc questions on an ooc discord.

You're not going to reconcile those two opinions. I definitely don't think someone being mean about a minor OOC mistake IC is a huge deal in a game like Armageddon, it is deliberately a drab and shitty setting where you need to roll with stuff like that to play it and enjoy it. If someone knows they don't want to deal with that kind of thing, it's way better they're aware of it than try the game, have a shitty experience 2 weeks in and leave. Better to just let it lie, you know? Neither side is really wrong (edit: whether or not the example is exaggerated and assumes there's a really shitty player involved).

@bronn I dunno that it's fair to say a circular forum argument is proof an entire community is bad at taking criticism. It's a forum argument, it would be more surprising if it wasn't circular. God save the poor soul who point outs everyone is just saying 'if you don't like it FINE but here am I arguing every point and you better drop it instead of retorting, WAIT YOU RETORTED, how dare' ad nauseam.

This is a big ask on the code front, but maybe @rs could be refined a bit: last week I got three PCs who I hadn't met (though only managed to scene with one: Iliana and Luis, let's still look each other up, if you're reading this!) -- but the week before that I had two PCs I literally had just gotten out of a scene with just before cron recycled. This week I have one PC my PC knows quite well, and one PC in his org. I'd probably RP with both of them anyway (though I did tell the well-known PC's player that I operate with a sense of breathing room... guess not! ) I don't think it would be practicable to code this, and it might just be my weird luck of the draw, but it's something I've noticed nonetheless.

@fortydeuce What are you actually suggesting here? Like refine it to prefer people you've met, haven't met? It's not really clear.