Best posts made by Roz

@thenomain I really think you'll find a lot more people who define MUD with the characteristics @Sparks describes than the definition you're trying to use.

DRAGON AGE 2 IS MY PERFECT BABY AND IT IS PERFECT

@thenomain said in Earning stuff:

This is a lot easier in books, where there is more time and effort given to it. Not every scene has to be The Most Important Thing Right Now, and I revel in that. I don't want to wait for The Most Important Thing Right Now. I want to have Right Now be important, even if it's not The Most Important Thing, and having to wait on events and people to decide to crawl out of their private homes to make Now be important is frustrating because I can illustrate games, past and present, where this wasn't a thing.

Random scenes is incredibly important for this, social or otherwise.

I think it's still important to note that while books often have more space to spread out than an episode of television, every scene in a book should still serve a specific purpose. Move the plot forward, reveal something about the character, build important notes of a relationship. The real difference is in how writing builds when it's planned versus unplanned, as in RP. The problem isn't the existence of social scenes, it's that you don't know going in if a social scene you wander into is going to manage to hit any interesting or relevant notes. Because sometimes they just don't. Sometimes you can't really manage to hook with the other player(s), sometimes you don't get to explore or reveal character or relationships. Sometimes the Right Now simply doesn't manage to be important or relevant, and that's what makes people bored. When people complain about BarRP, I assume they're talking about scenes that never really find a spark. And I'm not saying that all social scenes need to find something super deep in them, but I think the spark is what people are looking for. So when people have the choice between a private scene with a character they already have a spark with versus going out to maybe meet some new people that might be a lot of fun or might be dull as dishwasher -- sometimes people just don't have the time or energy to roll the dice on the latter.

I love social RP. I think the time in between the big, world-shattering events is hugely important, just as important -- if not moreso -- than the events themselves. How the characters grow and react, how their lives and attitudes change, all of it. And tons of my great, important IC relationships are built from a foundation of just -- meeting a random PC in public.

In a medium that you can write out and plan, every scene, every passage, can have a purpose, from big to small. That's what good writing does. And I think that's what most people seek in their RP: for interactions to feel alive and relevant in the world. It's just that the results of random public RP can be hugely inconsistent.

MISADVENTURE IS TRYING TO DICTATE POST ORDER

@rnmissionrun said in Alternative Formats to MU:

@sunny said in Alternative Formats to MU:

@rnmissionrun said in Alternative Formats to MU:

I honestly do not think that simply moving from MUSHcode to Python (or Ruby) will make it 'orders of magnitude' easier.

https://codecombat.com

This exists for learning Python. I have used it to teach teenagers, and I do not code. This truly is orders of magnitude easier than how we had to learn to use mushcode. This isn't even considering the fact that I can literally go take a class from a professional instructor, do a coding boot camp, buy any number of hundreds of books, watch instruction videos on youtube...and I could continue going on listing ways to learn, NONE of which exist for mushcode.

Motivated learner, apparently with the aptitude for programming and with access to quality instruction tools. Results not typical

If someone doesn't want to tinker with a modern programming language, they're certainly not going to tinker with the mess that is MUSH code.

@RDC said in General Video Game Thread:

Longer games = better games is a cancer on the games industry.

Yeah, Untitled Goose Game is about four hours of content and easily worth $1000 in entertainment value. Don't @ me.

@surreality said in Open Sheets?:

@roz Most posts have been clear on that front, so I must have missed any broad assertions that there's a 'one true way' from a wide array of posters.

No, I didn't say it was a wide array of posters, but I was expressing annoyance at this back and forth:

@magee101 said in Open Sheets?:

TBH even in a PVP game there is no reason there should be an OOC Masq. The only times it really matters is assholes who metagame, guess what, you're not going to stop them from metagaming even if you try and hide every piece of info.

@admiral said in Open Sheets?:

There's no reason for open sheets in any circumstance anyways, aside from staff-lite games that require players to police each other.

...because I think that general attitude is unhelpful. Yes, I do know that most of us are all accustomed to "Don't use OOC information IC" and that it can often be not a big a deal. I was just saying that there are different preferences, and that I don't think it's fair to say that a good player has to equal one who prefers open sheets because they'd never metagame. In a situation where IC information and secrecy is delicate, plenty of good players may still prefer not having the info OOC. And for some people that is a bit exhausting, as expressed here:

@insomniac7809 said in Open Sheets?:

I don't like having to keep what I IC know from what I OOC know separate beyond what I have to and I really don't like trying to second-guess whether my PC could have figured out what I already know to be the case OOC.

...which is a sentiment I also feel personally in my own play.

All I'm saying is that both of these perspectives -- people who prefer closed sheets vs open sheets -- have pros and cons and neither is inherently indicative of player or game quality.

This thread doesn't get enough love. We're all so negative, guys.

But my MU Things I Love tonight are those once in a blue moon first RP meetings that turn into delightful extended scenes and pretty much lock in an ongoing connection to explore.

@rnmissionrun said in Alternative Formats to MU:

@meg said in Alternative Formats to MU:

@rnmissionrun said in Alternative Formats to MU:

I honestly do not think that simply moving from MUSHcode to Python (or Ruby) will make it 'orders of magnitude' easier. Sure, it might help some folks, but IMO if you don't have the aptitude for coding, simply switching languages isn't going to make any difference. The problem is that doing anything non-trivial in /any/ programming language requires real skill. Non-coders probably won't have those skills, or be interested in developing them.

Lol. I once showed a real coder (a man who has worked as a systems architect in C, C++, and C# and node.js and all kinds of languages for 20+ years) some MUSH code and he stared at it in horror and couldn't figure it out.

He could probably learn Python in a day.

And that's an /experienced coder/ learning. Not an inexperienced one.

That was my first reaction too, but I stuck with it and eventually figured it out

My point was that simply switching languages wasn't going to help people who weren't interested in learning a programming language or who lack the aptitude for coding.

No, but it will make it a whole lot easier for folks who are inclined to try out learning a bit of code. Like, the idea that changing to an easier and more powerful programming language with tons more resources to learn in the world somehow will have no effect on anything is just -- weird.

Yes, people who don't want to try ever learning code will continue to not try to learn code. That will be the case no matter what.

@testament

@Ominous

There is no movie in Ba Sing Se.

@Clarity said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

@Cupcake said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

@Goyim said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:

What'd Julea do? Has anyone else been banned yet?

I do know some eyes were turned toward her direction regarding blocking other people out of rp, and likewise some regard as getting an overt amount of attention and shinies plotwise. I could not speak as to the veracity of it all, but the former would be more likely a reason for ban than the latter.

Neither are correct.

Went out of my way to involve people who were struggling to get involved in story and plot, but my play times sometimes made it tricky to catch up with everyone I wanted to.

I'm sure you were very inclusive of people who you didn't feel were direct competition to your personal story.

@rnmissionrun said in Alternative Formats to MU:

I honestly don't think that the requirement to download and install an app in order to play on a MUSH is an issue at all. Millions of smartphone users understand the concept of "you need an app for that", as do most computer users.

The issue of people not wanting to type complicated commands, well that's a little different, but I look at it like this. You're communicating with others in a text-only medium. You're using words to convey visual information, emotion, sounds, moods. If you can handle all that, but are stymied by the syntax for the command to make a bbpost, then you're probably in the wrong hobby.

Yup, that's the overall attitude that makes the hobby generally unwelcoming to outsiders who might be interested in giving it a try.

Honestly, any and all apology threads should just be moved directly to the Hog Pit, because that's pretty much always where they end up. (And really, it's pretty manipulative to post an apology thread for terrible behavior in a section of the forum that lets them be like "but don't personally attack me for this terrible behavior!!")

@faraday said in How do you keep OOC lounges from becoming trash?:

@Arkandel said in How do you keep OOC lounges from becoming trash?:

Aw, come on. Anywhere. Give them personal rooms or 'quiet' rooms they can idle in without spamming each other. ... Then let channels do what they're there for, with a history function so they can be monitored by staff for abuse (as opposed to 'X said Y ten minutes ago' and sending logs back and forth after the fact).

Personal rooms don't fit every game theme, and as previously mentioned I already have a quiet room if you want to opt out of chit-chat. Also you're assuming the history function is enabled, which not all games do.

I think there are far better RP-finding tools than the OOC room - in fact that's probably a mediocre one, and its function can be easily substituted by ... well, a channel. RP-seeking flags, grid incentives, public +events, hell the +where command, these are all more effective ways of finding a scene.

In my experience, that's not the case. I've had a Looking for RP flag in my codebase for decades and can count on one hand the number of times I've seen it used. "Does anybody want to RP" type questions on public often go unanswered when people de-spam for RP... I could go on with other examples but the TL;DR version is I think our experiences are different.

The Public channel is bad for finding RP, true. A dedicated RolePlay channel or something similar isn't. (And when I've been staffing games with one, we would actively nudge people off if they started using the RP channel for chatter, as we wanted to specifically protect it as a non-spammy channel just for finding RP.)

@rnmissionrun said in Alternative Formats to MU:

@roz said in Alternative Formats to MU:

@rnmissionrun said in Alternative Formats to MU:

Yup, that's the overall attitude that makes the hobby generally unwelcoming to outsiders who might be interested in giving it a try.

If that's true, then labeling the very reasonable expectation that people learn to use the tools that are required by the venue in order to use it effectively (or at all), is another.

There's a difference between "the code and syntax and culture that has become ubiquitous across MUSHes is not intuitive and maybe needs to be improved OR at the very least maybe we could talk about how to write better educational tools for newcomers" and "people shouldn't have to learn the tools."

This is absolutely beyond the pale. I know what that conversation contained. You are angry at Farfalla for being one of the people to post unhappily about administrative choices and you are absolutely using this as retaliation. I am honestly shocked that you would engage in this level of unethical fashion.

@faraday said in Course Corrections:

@Auspice said in Course Corrections:

The issue wasn't the concept of Legos. It was her need to use the brand name (in IC dialogue) and have everyone else warp theme to do so as well (for them and other such items), for her.

OK, yeah, that sounds obnoxious now that I have more info.

But still, back to the more generic point... LEGO is a particularly glaring use (like iPod would be), but it still seems a weird thing for folks to get upset over. I mean, where do you draw the line? Like @ThatGuyThere said -- what about 'tennis shoes' or 'aspirin' or 'kleenex' or 'okay', or 'getting to third base' or calling someone a 'casanova' or saying you're going to 'go postal'?
There are a bazillion common everyday items/expressions that have their roots in specific RL historical events or brand names. Trying to be the Theme Police for all of that just sounds exhausting.

Well, I can imagine a single off-hand comment ("Hah, we wouldn't actually have real LEGOs cause of theme") become a much bigger deal after facing the kind of reaction described. ("I was told I don't have to watch the show so you can't tell me when I'm wrong about theme!!") It definitely sounds like one of those cases where it may have only become a big deal because of the reaction.

@auspice said in Alternative Formats to MU:

If you want Discord-style 'chat' for your roleplay, why not just go and start roleplaying there? I mean, people have been roleplaying in places like that for a while now.

Single-sentences, rapid-fire RP. 'Mary giggles.' 'Bob smiles.' 'Ryan says, 'Let's go.' 'Mary says, 'Okay.' 'Bob goes over there.' 'Ryan follows.'

You too could be part of that engaging environment!

If an interface of buttons and drop-down menus is what you need for the future of your roleplay, it's out there. If you need avatars, it's out there, too. There's MMOs with roleplay servers.

I just happen to think the crux of MU*ing happens to be the actual writing aspect of it. And the more we obsess over what buttons we're clicking (or not), the further we drift away from that.

And maybe I'm alone in that thinking, which makes me kind of sad.

I think this is a pretty unfair representation of the conversation going on. We're talking about how and why to develop a better, more user-friendly experience for the kind of RP we already have. No one is saying the writing isn't important. We're saying that the user experience of getting to that "actual writing aspect" could be improved in a way that would make it easier to use and more welcoming to new people who might enrich the hobby.

@Thenomain said in Identifying Major Issues:

I asked my Millenial co-worker how many people he knew would know how to make a secondary email for junk and things and things and junk, to separate their important stuff from other stuff, and he said about one third.

We here are generally very technical people. I expected him to say, "why would anyone have only one email address", but he didn't. I'm not using this as proof that two thirds of "kids these days" are not technically savvy, but as evidence that "not that hard" is a matter of great perspective.

Having multiple email addresses doesn't have to equal technically savvy. I'd rate myself as very technically savvy, but I don't have a separate email for junk. Did your coworker really say that only one third of millennials would know how to make another email address, or probably have a secondary email address for junk? I do know plenty of non-tech savvy millennials, but I still think most of them would know how to sign up for an email address.

That said, I also freely use my personal email address for game signup things. I used it for Arx chargen, sure. I didn't think about not using it.

The bottom line is that @surreality is building a game with certain functions and a level of wiki integration that requires an email. That is the game she is building, so in this case, the structure of the game does need an email. If folks have strong objections to using an email, personal or burner, they can play other games and it's not a big deal. I honestly don't understand why this becomes such a huge issue whenever it comes up, like the very idea of a MU* asking for an email is so offensive to some people.