Best posts made by Rook

@Thenomain said (in the Video Game thread)
I also cannot think of a time I am any more nervous and anxious about our future. Obviously I want it to go one way over another, but I called it a war because I think we have some core ideologies that are clashing hard. It's nerve-wracking. It's amazing.

I want to find the happy middle ground. Except for over science. Businessmen and religious organization who are trying to push an anti-science agenda for their own profit or beliefs can fuck right off. Humanity will be worse off for the attempts of these people.

This is now the entirely wrong thread for this. Hm.

New thread!
Ideologies are clashing all the time, the world over. That's why we have news. Now is no different than a hundred years ago, or fifty. The topics are just different.

Progress can keep marching, I say. I have zero issue with people gaining equal rights, I support the fuck out of it, both verbally and with my donated time now and again.

"Instead, you come into my house on the day my daughter is to be married, and you ask me to do murder for money."

Can this be likened to a convicted sexual predator moving into your neighborhood? I think it can be.

I think that game staff, and players, have every right to say, "No nope!" to someone that is a habitual, long-term offender. Period. End of discussion at that point.

@rebekahse
I am also betting that there is a "PoseBreak" sort of thing going on the game. Is it a MUSH? What flavor serverbase? That will help us troubleshoot (well, what we can).

Potato doesn't do that by default on a Rhost, MUX or Penn, that I see.

I think of things this way... In any given group, you will have a spectrum of 'heat', if you will. Indulge me in the mind exercise.

In a church, to use a wide-spread example, you have those that drink on Friday and Saturday night and come to church on Sunday and basically put in their time. Let's call them the 'blue', or cool side of the heat spectrum. Then you also have those that pray fervently every day, observe every religious rule that they know of, and generally frown on and avoid vices. This is the 'red', or hot side, of this group's "heat spectrum" that I picture.

You see this in every group where sub-groups are probable. High school class. Large groups of friends. Work offices.

Here's what I see as the real danger -- media (traditional news, social, anything with a large audience) tends to gravitate toward the 'louder voices'. Violence gets the airtime, be it physical or verbal. You hear about personalities posting Tweets that start a flamewar that no one not subscribed to those personalities would know about if it weren't for media calling attention to it.

It is the adult, modern equivalent of the class bully being watched by the entire school beating up a smaller/younger/underdog kid. The vast majority stand around and just watch. But a few egg that bully on. Bad Things happen.

Apply that mentality to the world hotspot issues right now, and you see where it could theoretically go.

I think my implied question should've been clearer: How do you NOT come to a game like this and make every fucking effort to be different, anonymous and someone new? My point here is - someone who doesn't do this, is either blissfully self-ignorant and in denial of accusations before, or they are (as so many have said) happily arrogant and uncaring for the reputation that precedes them.

Eh, I don't think that works, @Cupcake, in the discussion of academia and insult that @Ganymede and @Ataru are having up above.

If a student flails at a singular word being used in proper context of a teaching situation, then that student is either ignoring that the teacher is using said context properly, or they are super-sensitive. The conversation above is talking about the latter.

I think the conversation here is when adequate context and intent is not only given, but supercedes the expectation because the conversation itself is happening in a forum designed and built for exchanging ideas at a higher level. That's, like, the mission statement of a University or College, right?

Someone doesn't get to sit in on a medical lecture about the difficulties encountered by prosthetic-wearing patients, and get all upset and lodge complaints just because the word "disabled" is used when talking about the victim being pinned in a car for seven hours and loosing her leg. It is STILL the word used by governments, signs and non-profit organizations to describe the condition.

@Tinuviel
There is a difference between ME avoiding Bob and STAFF regulating a no-contact order. I believe I also had a caveat on that post that spoke about venting, or one-time things:

*Granted, a venting wouldn't warrant this reaction from me. We all vent, I get that. But those that repeatedly bitch tend to be very destructive to games, foment upset on that game, and drive players away whether you realize that they are doing it or not.

The difference here being a single incident and repeated incidents?

@Arkandel
Okay, I totally understand where you're coming from. And to be clear, it isn't that I dislike no-contacts, but I just don't think that (with the example you gave) that a public no-contact ban on RP from a single non-witnessed incident would be my course of decision. I think we are agreeing here, I just needed to come to understand what you were illustrating. My own slowness.

Clearly not real. Massuesse does not have oil bottle on belt.

@Derp
But public opinion of your Own Rule is entirely a valid thing. If you put a rule on your game that allows the staff to sell that mandatory staff-only email to marketers, just because you want to use that to pay for your hosting, your playerbase gets the right to have an outcry over it. It is how games that have crazy rules and cultures are made to die. The MU community will not let bad behavior thrive, in most cases, and it teaches the rest of us NOT to do that.

If you want to give someone a second or third or even a fourth chance on your game, I don't think this would be an issue. Several people have voiced that they would be forgiving, would give that same opportunity. I think @Ganymede is right that ignoring that sheer bulk of evidence is a irresponsible thing to do as a staff. The evidence is overwhelming if it spans a decade plus.

This thread was started to level the conversation into greyness, so as to allow for abstract discussion. I think it can be agreed that the case in which we are specifically referring to is an extreme outlier to this conversation, yes? Just because this discussion is warranted (this is one of those exercises in learning from things), doesn't mean that you have to like it. This seems to be more a discussion about how MSB wants to set expectation on behavior from MSB members when this shit happens.

Kitten-in-training? Or is this the type of place where you have to sneak in and out of?

I think that Staff should be concerned with someone's impact to their game. Players should be concerned with a player's impact to them personally, their RP, and so on. If a player is a vile [Republican|Democrat] in internet chatrooms, Facebook, whatever, that should have no bearing on their participation on a game, nor in whether or not I'll RP with them. It has no bearing on the game, nor me.

Why does MSB not have a MUSH/MUX to hang out on?

The forums are great, but for conversations and such, a game would be nice to hang out on, too.

@Sammi said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

Stop using a car to go places. Let your car insurance lapse, stop paying for gas, get a better bike, and some good saddle bags so that you can carry groceries and a laptop and stuff.

That might work great for people that live in the city, in an apartment, who just go to the grocery, entertainment venues and then work/home... but some of us actually NEED vehicles to get things done. I can't imagine hauling lumber, electrical supplies, etc on a bike.

Naw, just another channel.

We still have bikes for exercise and fun. Just not as transportation.

I find that if I don't participate in the mud-slinging, at all, that people don't come to me with it. Further, I've been told (as a direct result of this) that people come to me IRL for advice because of that. They know for a fact that I don't shit-talk behind people's backs.

Blah blah blah, change starts with you, don't surround yourself with crap people, blah blah blah... but the sayings are all true for a reason.

When people start shit-talking someone to you, and if all you say is "I'm sorry you feel like that. Have you talked to [him/her]?", it makes them pause and go 'Oh shit' for a moment. Sometimes, it makes them realize that there is a "simple solution" to their issue, and that talking to whomever isn't that hard of a problem to overcome. Sometimes.

Eh, anyway.

You all suck. The kids have been screwing up my lawn and my cane is dirty.

That moment when you are vindicated/exonerated from the accusations of causing a huge business impact for a client... by the client's own people supporting what you said was the cause of the issue (their systems). I have been so stressed out because of this.

As long as the <Super Character> is always open to any player, so that newcomers are not told "Sorry, <Super Characters> are closed, play a normal person." at which I find that very, very few people would stay on a game unless that is Their Thing.

I think that any PVP game should start with a level playing field. Yes, you will inherently hit the Oldbies vs Newbies problem, but no game system has figured that part out, nor do I think that they need to. Playing, investment and loyalty to a game should have a reward.

But nothing seems to suck more than finding a new game where the Oldbies are all idle/vacation, but tying up slots that newbies with energy and ideas could be revitalizing the game. It breeds stagnancy, and stagnancy is the first step in one decline pattern.