Posts made by Ortallus

@ganymede Anxiety and depression have little to nothing to do with how successful you are, or how good your job, kids, parents and in-laws are. Anxiety and depression are medical conditions caused by an imbalance in your brain's chemistry. There's nothing to feel stupid about. Your feelings are valid. Don't suppress them, evaluate them. Converse with them. Question why they are acting up.

But above all, breathe.

After you breathe, and after you've evaluated your feelings, then ask yourself what you can do to slow those feelings down. Not just in the short term, but in the long term. Try to figure out if those feelings are, legitimately or not, trying to protect you from something, and then work to convince yourself that you don't need protection from whatever that is.

@saosmash said in MU Things I Love:

MU things I love includes players who take negative consequences for their character and immediately turn them into more story -- and immediately reach out to others -- without dissolving into tears, recriminations and blame.

This is why I don't like any of the current Shadowrun games. Consequences aren't allowed. One of my characters on Shadowrun Seattle was arrested once, and he used his phonecall to call his decker buddy, which in turn ended up being a run for the decker. Alternatively he could have called a lawyer, or a fixer, or a number of other entities in a "get me out of this" situation.

The problem that most people would have with this is it made him "not the hero" for the moment, but rather the "damsel" as it were, and I think people in most MU*s tend to think of themselves as "THE" Hero, and everyone else as supporting cast.

@sunny The only one I saw when I wrote the original post was a 17 year old, and I never saw any adults doing the tide pod challenge at all.

Mind you, I've seen plenty of adults walking around their house or back yard doing the Bird Box challenge, and that is, frankly, dumb, but w/e. It's not like they're having people shoot at them while they're doing it or putting pointy spikes around their yard first.

But anyone who gets in a car to drive blindfolded should be deported. To Antarctica.

Edit: Source
https://www.wnns.com/2019/01/14/17-year-old-does-bird-box-challenge-on-the-highway-it-ends-the-way-you-would-expect/

@gangofdolls Spaghetti squash is your friend.

@lisse24 It's just Tyche and his usual trolling, pay it no mind.

Admittedly though, the tide pod challenge is minor when compared to people getting into a car blindfolded, as per this idiotic bird box challenge.

@auspice Ah, I unlocked the assistant but sort of forgot to get around to looking at what it does. <.<

I will say the gated XP thing is sort of off putting, and there seems to be a lot of push towards the cash shop, which is also a turn off, but it seems like as long as you don't have a drive to be "OMG UBER #1" the game can be pretty enjoyable and playable without spending.

@2mspris For what it's worth, the post was made somewhat tongue in cheek, which I figured people would understand by the title. Apparently that was lost in translation though.

@auspice I've been playing this so I can write a review for work, and despite myself I'm rather enjoying it. I never played the original Ragnarok, so I'm finding it a little overwhelming, but I'm getting there.

Often when I'm answering questions I'll offer up the help file, and then a summation of what they requested from said file. Or a link etc.

@insomnia I see your point. Which is why curation needs to be a thing. Which, on Steam, it's not.

@insomnia We'll have to agree to disagree. I think that, like so much else, is utter garbage that I just don't want to have to see on my game store app. I'm not saying other people don't have a right to like it. I'm also not saying Steam is going away any time soon, nor should it.

I just don't understand where this "I don't want to have multiple launchers" thing is coming from. I mean, I've got Steam, Blizzard, EPIC and Origin already, for various reasons, and had Bethesda up until the dumpster fire that was Bethesda's handling of Fallout 76 (for the record, I enjoyed the game immensely, but the issues that came up made me walk away from the title and the company entirely, for good). Also, I guess I have Discord's store, too, now that I've used it much yet.

I really wonder how many people really ONLY play games on Steam, and how many are saying that they don't want multiple launchers just because that's the 'in' thing to be doing. I also wonder if Steam didn't start some of those reddit posts about "Multiple launchers bad, Steam good," as some manner of market manipulation.

Also, Steam has given us plenty of reasons not to trust them over the years. Saying "Well, at least I know what to expect!" is like a burn victim setting themselves on fire.

Plus, a lot of the "features" the people talk about on Steam are, frankly, garbage. Their streaming service? Sucks. It's barely used. Their VOIP? Sucks. Most people use Discord these days. Their reviews and ratings system? Corrupted and broken. Plus, remember when Steam tried to make paid mods a thing? Uh huh. And there have been articles written about how bad Steam's customer service was BEFORE they laid off a number of them. They've got an F rating from the BBB and scores of complaints filed with the FTC.

https://www.bbb.org/us/wa/bellevue/profile/online-gaming/valve-corporation-1296-27030704

@thenomain No, you're fine. I didn't necessarily try to set out convincing people either, I was just really curious why people are so resistant to EPIC in general, because I've had no problems using it. The worst thing I can say about it currently is that it lacks titles, but since it's hand curated, that's to be expected.

@templari Well, in fairness the launcher is in its infancy, and they've already made strides of improvement. I think it was a rather spontaneous launch, but they're doing some big things already. I'm interested to see where it goes.

@Thenomain I suppose I see where you're coming from, and I was a bit reluctant at first on the idea of the EPIC launcher, but the more I see about their plans and their already improvements, the happier I get. Frankly, I've been sick of Steam for quite some time, and have had nothing but problems with them in regards to customer service issues when they've come up, and I get really tired of seeing things like this on Steam:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/663830/George_VS_Bonny_PP_Wars/

@templari I've never had to deal with EPIC's support, but I can definitely say the same thing about Steam's. In fact, it's rare in this day and age to find any tech company with 'decent' support, to the point where I'd say decent support is more noteworthy than bad support.

@thenomain Exactly how is Steam's launcher different from EPIC in this, though, I'm confused. They appear to work identically. You click the icon, the game launches, the browser launches in the background.

@kay As of yet, no, but frankly I find that to be a good thing, but I tend to use Discord over Steam's socialization aspects. I find Steam's lack of moderation or curation to lead not only to an utterly toxic environment but their review system is corrupted big time. *Edit: Added: I agree about the Origin store though, I'm definitely not a fan.

@Thenomain The launcher is part of the DRM though, so what you're really asking for is a DRM that doesn't require the launcher to function I guess? Or DRM free (in which case you have GoG, but you see how that has functioned thus far).

@Auspice Just tested with Subnautica: Closed the EPIC launcher, then double clicked the Subnautica icon on my desktop. EPIC store launched itself into my background and Subnautica launched into active window. I never actually looked at the EPIC launcher while this happened. It launched from the desktop icon just fine.

After seeing some reactions to Ubisoft's announcement of exclusivity for EPIC's store in regards to The Division 2, I'm quite curious as to people's general thoughts about the new store front. Pros and cons of EPIC, pros and cons of Steam, etc.

Please keep the conversation constructive and address ideas, and the platforms, not people (unless it's Gaben or something, and even then keep it constructive please).

@rahnevyn said in Encouraging Proactive Players:

@ortallus said in Encouraging Proactive Players:

tl;dr: If you want to 'encourage proactive players'... reward them!! Make it worth their while.

The fun of your game should be a reward in and of itself, but overall I agree with this statement.

Players want to feel like they have agency in the game they're playing and the plots happening around them. They're much more likely to engage and keep coming back if you keep things fresh, exciting, and interesting, and reward them for the effort they're putting in.

I come from an RPI, so rewards and involvement look a bit different than in a MUSH setting, but overall I think the best way to keep proactive players is to make sure their activity is noticed and appreciated.

But see, "The fun of your game" is what the non-proactive players get, just for showing up. The proactive ones should be encouraged to continue being so, or they won't be so, and then the game is less fun for everyone.

@tat said in Encouraging Proactive Players:

@ortallus said in Encouraging Proactive Players:

Tenebrae/Symbol of Ea also has a really cute "random plot generator" for PrPs. You pull a lever and it spits something out like, "<Class/Villain type> is doing <thing> and it's pissing off <group> so they've hired a group of adventurers to stop them!"

I coded something like this for Alpha & Omega. You hit +gmscene, and it spit out either an NPC(s) + an action, or a scenario.

It got used... some. I think the scenarios were more successful than the NPC + action (probably because they tended to involve less needing to NPC). It was a cool idea, and I'd probably do it again, but it really was only a tool players who were already proactive were using for inspiration, not something that inspired people to become proactive, I think.

If you're curious, you can see the NPC/action/scenario list here.

Yeah, they can often be more cute than useful, but at the same time, they can spawn ideas from one element on the list, or do 3-4 pulls and cherry pick the things from each that sound fun.