Well part of what @bobotron mention wasn't just paying for the shinies but limiting how many shinies one can ever have. So, if Seers are really popular, make that the only shiny they can get, while non-Seers can have a bunch of shinies, since those things are less shiny.
@Apos I can't see not setting, really. It's been ingrained since the first day I started playing MUSHes. Generally, I keep it to the basics - time of day, weather conditions (usually restating whatever the server weather code has), how crowded the area is, and the current states of the characters involved in the scene.
A good set should give a recent arrival enough of a summary to quickly visualize what everyone else is hopefully visualizing, and a couple of poses after it should give enough material for the new arrivals to respond to.
@Misadventure said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:
There are other minor issues of continuity that also intrude, like one group poses just coming in from pouring rain, and two poses later people come into the scene talking about the break in the weather, or you start your scene at IC time, but it ruins slower than IC time, so you have folks showing up for nighttime in the middle of your lunch scene.
Those sound like issues with not providing a proper set for new arrivals or new arrivals not waiting for the set. The first is an understandable oopsie. The second is annoying as hell. No one's writing is so fantastic that it cannot wait for those in the room to give a set and some poses.
I don't ask permission to join public scenes generally. I never understood the thinking of that with public rooms.
@surreality That's fine. I was posting more for Goldfish anyways.
@Noodle-McDoodle I am the same way. I only recently purchased a silk outfit for the first time in 8 months.
A note about courtesans, as was discussed heavily recently, there is no institutionalized prostitution in Arx at all, so courtesans are not selling sex. They are event planners, host/esses, companions, etc. The description of the receiving room in the Whisper House can be a bit confusing since it says that people occasionally show up thinking it is a brothel. That doesn't happen as there are no brothels. The very idea of a brothel is an alien concept. The description is likely a hold over from very early alpha.
@mietze Right. It's why I referred to it as the prince/princess thing. I guess god/goddess or actor/actress would have been a better reference. Same role, different title.
I am going to have to side with Glitch. Arx's theme, Thrax aside, is that there are no gender roles. Identifying as any gender cannot determine anything, unless Thrax. So if you're write-up is for a Thrax culture, you should be good. If it is any other kingdom, it probably won't work.
However, back to the spirit of the conversation, culture building is my favorite aspect of MU*s. Exploring other cultures is mainly why I play.
@icanbeyourmuse said in Culture Building:
Wouldn't it mean that lady's maids, ladies-in-waiting, valets, etc shouldn't exist then? I saw a lady's maid or something as a bit. Lady's maids are a female role and valets are a male role.
I think this is the prince/princess thing. They are titles for what are essentially the same role. It's not that a male gendered person couldn't be a lady's maid. They absolutely can, but they would be called a valet.
If you want to see cussing, hang out around Redrain. Anze, Asger, Agnarr, Aksel, Arik...basically all the A named ones cuss. Some more than others.
Resdays were when you discovered who was a new player to the game because they would submit an action they wanted to take, thinking they finally got a chance to be a part of the plot, only to discover their character getting killed in interested ways.
@Kanye-Qwest said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:
Edited to add: And we aren't going to be restricting our responses to emits, necessarily. Sometimes actions on +crisis will lead to live GMing
That's already a promising improvement.
Have we gone back to this already? Kanye can be a prickly cactus with a chip on her shoulder. Thenomain can be an asshole without the ability to even entertain the idea that he is wrong. I am a bullheaded jerk who gets way too heated and takes things personally in discussions.
We all have our flaws. Yadda, yadda, yadda... Let's get back to productive conversation.
My one concern is that +crisis will bring back the joys of Resday and wondering if the mob tore your character limb from limb.
Lots of betrothals and such, though.
@surreality I mean that I hate doing wiki stuff in general. I don't like fiddling with wiki pages.
I hate wiki stuff, but I do have some ideas for how to improve upon what KD did.
I volunteer too. I was Saga on your fiddly server, Muse. Is it the same address and everything or something different?
@WTFE said in Sensitive cultural/political/religious aspects of game themes.:
@Kestrel You know, it is actually possible that "create the game that you want" is precisely what @surreality is doing…
What I'm seeing is a lot of people bitching that it's not the game they want.
I am in the same boat as others, and think surreality should make whatever game they want. However, surreality did start this thread asking for input, so we're giving. We didn't start this thread saying "OMG, look at what surreality thinks and here is our thoughts on that."
I am alright playing on a game with rape, racism, etc. I'm not going to engage in such RP myseld, but if it's happening around me, whatever. But surreality is the one that asked, and we are only responding with our thoughts.
@surreality said in Sensitive cultural/political/religious aspects of game themes.:
@Kanye-Qwest The game has a preferences system accessible on game and on wiki that players can fill out re: this and various other subjects, stating their interest or lack thereof in that subject matter.
In other words, if someone wants to play a character who is very racist or sexist, they can say so there, in a completely non-confrontational• context. This provides a warning to others if that's something they don't want to deal with, but also means that a character who wants to explore those challenges knows there's someone they can reasonably expect to encounter them with IC. This is actually not uncommon already; I have seen endless wiki pages on games that make note of this, and do so to make fellow players aware in advance.
While that does address some of the issue, the offending material is still present on the server and threatens to loom in on an unrelated scene. Let's say Jane avoids anything involving rape (I am using that for the example, because it seems to be the most common area people avoid), so she avoids people who are OK RPing that. Everything is hunky dory, until John rapes Jill. While Jane isn't involved in the initial scene, talk spreads through town "Did you hear about Jane getting attacked and raped!". Then the manhunt begins, and the catch the bastard. "John did it and they got him.". Now there is a trial scheduled and that's put on the +event schedule as well as the subsequent hanging. Jane wanted to avoid the topic of rape, by rape is what everyone is talking about.
For another example, a black player, Bob, wants to avoid any racism on the game. He doesn't RP with people with the rascist flag set and he even plays a white character just to be safe. He's in a random scene in a tavern, enjoying himself with RP that doesn't have a whiff of rascist in them, when Bureaugard the plantation owner, McReedy the fugitive slave hunter, and Billy Bob the KKK member (It's a very eclectic setting) walk in and start throwing the slurs immediately. What is Bob to do? He has done everything to avoid such topics but it's come to him. Is he expected to leave since he can't handle the RP? That sounds like a recipe for easy trolling. Does he ask the other players to leave? It's a public room and that's rather rude. Is Bob stuck just RPing in private rooms where he can control who comes in?
@Cupcake I think it's still in the Guest channel buffer if you go back far enough, like 500 or 600.
It's a similar approach to games that say 'No rape stories.' Most games agree that rape is a thing and probably exists in the setting, but they're simply not exploring it. In the battle of the bulge example, it's much the same. Anti-Semitism was definitely an issue at this time, but we're not exploring it here, so don't venture into that topic.
Removing it from a wider setting of WWII is a bit trickier, but the Third Reich's litany of crimes aren't limited to just the Holocaust. Still with the issue of Holocaust denial as well as America's tendency to have amnesia about the Japanese internment, I think it would be appropriate for some sort of statement on the game's policy files stating that they accept that the Holocaust happened and do not wish to whitewash that particular bit of history. They just don't want those themes explored.