Best posts made by Roz

@Arkandel said in Superhero Games: Quest For Villain PCs:

@Nein said in Superhero Games: Quest For Villain PCs:

@Roz I probably run in different mu subcultures, because I've rarely heard of PvP causing drama.

What?

That was my first response, too.

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

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

This this this. I've seen big stoic characters forced to react appropriately in certain GMed scenes because of composure checks.

Likewise I also enjoy seeing those players who take the initiative and just force themselves to make a Composure check. It's not common, but when I do see it I always get a little smile over it. To me it shows maturity and recognition that it's less about winning and more about making for a potentially interesting story with some random, unexpected twists thrown in.

Oh yeah, when players do it of their own accord it's even better! But if people are playing the whole cool cucumber game, it's totally fair to call for a check. (Then again, Unflappable Cool Cucumbers are like one of my least favorite things ever on games. You know the ones I'm talking about: players who never want to lose face at all in any way by being less than Perfectly Cool.)

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

I'm going to begin by saying: On the whole, I really like Arx; I try to contribute; and I willfully attempt suspend disbelief and ignore things/let things go that I don't want to cause trouble about.
But I have questions, and they are by and large questions I am afraid to ask online, because there's no real debate about them and it makes me look like an ass when there's arguments about things that have to be settled.
Here's some things that are dichotomies that must be accepted on the game that I have questions about. Please note: my conclusions or even statements may well be incorrect, poor, or stupid. But I feel uncomfortable even bringing them up in-game:

Thralldom:
a) PvP is highly discouraged.
b) Thrax holds thralls, which are indentured servants who are oft kept by increasing debts.
c) Opposing Thrax seems to be a bad idea and only doable politically, and at great risk.
d) Opposing Thrax regarding thralls from within seems to be a problem as well (I have no personal experience, just anecdotes).
e) Most anyone who isn't Thrax is instilled societally with a definitive dislike for the concept of thralldom.

So playing a character who would do something about it as-written, it appears as if you're throttled both whether you want to work in the system to fix it , or outside the system to topple it.

There are definitely multiple PCs who are pursuing anti-thralldom initiatives. I think it's designed to not be easy, because it's a huge cultural and economic foundation in Thrax.

Prostitution:
a) There are no prostitutes or sex-workers on Arx, and no one sells or buys sex.
b) Presumably this is for a variety of reasons, but the concept that prostitution is victimization of folks in sex work is probably one of them.
c) That's cool because they don't want to deal with the problems of whores. Which given some folks' reactions to it on Firan makes some sense.
d) Considering the fact that not all sex workers are victimized and, moreover, that there are many types of sex workers historically who were revered which could easily be placed in a fantasy world as the norm, I don't really get it.
e) But especially: contrast this with Thralldom, above. Why is indentured servitude accepted by even a portion of the population while sex work is accepted by none of the population?

The exchange of sex for money is something that can happen in Arx, per the helpfiles. It's not a formalized career, so there aren't really words for someone who would do it as a profession. It's not that it's not accepted by the population, it's that it's just not in demand enough for a bunch of full-time workers.

Human Sexuality:
a) Part and parcel of the bit on prostitution above is that no one pays for sex because people are enlightened about it, they can have sex without fear of disease or pregnancy.
b) The majority of the people who play on the game come from cultural backgrounds where the above are at least mostly true (condoms, et cetera). However, many of these cultures also have a history of condemning sexuality.
c) Even in a fantasy world where it's okay, it's difficult for people to play things without sexual judgment based on their experience in the real world. I've seen homosexual characters hiding their light under a bushel, so to speak, even though they'd really be no different than anyone else in a society as described. I've rarely seen sex discussed. I was involved in a duel over the idea of polyamory where my character was portrayed as less than honorable because of a publically-expressed (non-sexual) musing about it. I'm willing to fully own the idea that I portrayed myself poorly, or that I was wrong.
d) The intent of a full-sexual-freedom world does not seem to me to be embraced by the players or, in my opinion, even possible.

If people are playing that homosexuality needs to be hidden or that polyamory is societally unacceptable, they're just playing theme incorrectly. I've seen people get corrected for stuff like throwing out some IC homophobia and whatnot. Yeah, it's always hard to settle theme in a way that's contrary to something we're very much used to IRL, but people just have to be corrected.

Also if you want to see sex discussed IC you are more than welcome to RP with Aleksei. He'll totally talk about it!

In conclusion: frankly, I'd be happier with a game where there was a flat-out statement: We don't want to touch on human sexuality here because people have many varied and different opinions and expressions thereof, so please don't play here if that's what you want.

I don't think that statement would be at all true, though.

@Ganymede said in Course Corrections:

@Ghost said in Course Corrections:

The Viper pilot/Lego situation was a real situation, and when I mentioned that current pop culture references weren't in theme (I approached this delicately, politely), she told me that understanding the show wasn't required, that she'd never seen the show, doesn't want to, and to stop talking to her. Weeeeelp.

I'd've reported her to staff.

It's one thing to not know the theme. It's another to be willfully ignorant and unwilling to change that status because, fuck it, you want to play with Legos on a war-themed game.

Yeah. No policy of "you don't need to watch the show to play this game" also includes "and you don't have to listen to any nudges or corrections about theme!" because that would be stupid.

Also, like, just make up plastic block toys that aren't called Legos?

@Ganymede said in MU and Alternate Channels:

@Rook said in MU and Alternate Channels:

You are responsible for your behavior and actions at all times.

I follow a similar maxim, said another way:

Don't write something or message someone electronically with something you would not want someone to see as an exhibit in court.

@Aria I literally get excited to see activity notifications on my spawn for the Info channel on Arx because I love answering questions so much. (This is not the selfless gratification of helping others. I just like being a know-it-all faster than other people.)

@karmageddon said in Stranger Than Fiction MUX:

http://www.stfmush.com/sf/Basics

Sex : Yup. You gotta pick one! For the mentally delayed players, pick between Male and Female.

That blurb is so uncool on so many levels.

Fucking yikes.

@thenomain said in General Video Game Thread:

@roz said in General Video Game Thread:

@sparks said in General Video Game Thread:

@roz said in General Video Game Thread:

DRAGON AGE 2 IS MY PERFECT BABY AND IT IS PERFECT

holds up sign saying "REMEMBER THE CAVES"

P E R F E C T

Remember that plot in DA2 that wasn't about Merrill or Varric that was interesting? Yeah, me neither. Interesting aside: The woman who wrote for Merrill also wrote for Varric.

Um yes? I do remember? I remember all the plots because DA2 had the best story and best characters of all the DA games?

I feel like I'm seeing a lot of suggestions about pretty detailed requirements for mod actions along the lines of "peel off posts one by one and move them into the Hog Pit and leave a link back at the original post."

I've kind of gotten fully on board with the idea some others have brought up of just letting the mods delete posts and letting people recreate their own conversations. It'll let things run more efficiently, and it might actually get people to eventually learn to think more about what they're posting and where they're posting. And warning repeat offenders and the like. I know at least one of the Reddit subs I frequent has a policy of deleting subsequent posts from folks arguing about post deletions with a message of "Direct arguments about moderation to the modmail." That probably won't fly on MSB because people are pretty attached to getting to do things publicly, but idk, if not that then maybe at least a dedicated post if you really want to argue about stuff.

Leave ad threads for the ads, ad updates, and maybe links to discussion posts elsewhere on the forum. Either lock it (if the functionality exists) or delete extraneous posts.

I guess my overall feeling is that with limiting moderation bandwith, it's better to just be brutally efficient and let the posters take the extra effort of starting new threads elsewhere and leaving behind indications that there are threads.

@Auspice Tbf he also specified that the problem wouldn't happen with an honest staffer on a consent game. I mean, I guess you could say that the asshole you encountered was honest about it, but I generally take "honest staffer" to also mean "decent staffer," which said asshole was clearly not.

Anyways, my larger point is that players and staffers can be shitty on every kind of game. The ways in which they are shitty can adjust to most exploit whatever type of game they're on. We've all seen shit. If the shit we've seen comes down to "a player or staffer was allowed to be shitty without being disciplined in some manner," then it's a player/staffing problem, not a system problem. And if the conversation is trying to focus on systems, then those sorts of problems end up conversational smokescreens.

@alexrocker said in Armageddon MUD:

The whole 'fee fees' thing (If I understand correctly) comes from the fact that the darksun theme is 'not' a democracy. So sometimes, new players find it offensive to be so horrendously scoffed at by nobility/corrupted soldiers/members of antagonistic races, because every being has the right to be respected. They are offended because the civilized expectations of their players are broken in a game that is 'not' civilized. They are offended because their rights are violated, in a game where nobody has any rights and any commoner even implying such a thing will be looked at weird and probably soon reported to the Templarate as a dissenter.

That hasn't been the core of the objection people have expressed on this thread to the use of the phrase. The issue isn't that players on this thread are offended at the idea of their characters being abused -- plenty of us have played on some dark, violent games. But players don't like to reap big negative ICC for things they didn't know OOC but their characters should have known IC. Like, oh there's a standard mode of address for this type of character? It's known by everyone so my PC should have definitely known it, but I hadn't found it OOCly, so now they're getting beaten up or murdered. General concepts of ICC=ICA are prevalent on MUSH and MUX-based games, but players don't like OOC Ignorance=IC Consequences. Which is very different from "I don't like dark, violent games."

DRAGON AGE 2 IS THE BEST BIOWARE GAME FIGHT ME

@sunny said in Forum wonk:

When was the last time you (general you, the reader here) looked at a thread that hasn't had posts in more than two months? I would hazard a guess to say that it is a very rare occurrence.

I've done it numerous times but mostly because I get into internet arguments that need Receipts.

What will I do without RECEITS

@TNP said in Is Giving Advice Worth It?:

So, I think it's safe to say that the answer to your question is...

sunglasses

Nein!

I would suggest seeing if one of the Wikidot mavens might make you some nicer templates for things like logs and character pages and house pages. Nothing fancy, just cleaner layouts that are easier to read and more informative. Probably as easy as then just lifting some of their own code. Better to try doing that now before you have too many existing pages to convert. There are several game wikidots around that are clean and accessible.

The Kotaku article about Anthem's development was fascinating. What a debacle.

So rezzing this thread for OBVIOUS REASONS.

I am feeling a bit anxious to put my money where my mouth is to help where I can. I am somewhat technically-inclined, but I am not a fully experienced server administrator, dev, coder, what have you. I can hesitantly and anxiously work my way through clear instructions, but I can tell you that trying to set up something like the Arxcode Evennia was a Trial for me (and then I never did quite get it working).

From going over this thread again, it sounds like the various proposed solutions (or attempted solutions) were:

1. Stay on NodeBB and migrate the database from Redis to MongoDB. This would either require someone writing a custom migration solution or paying NodeBB to do it for us. When Ark mentioned this, he dropped a dollar tag of $500. (FWIW, I am assuming that was the cost for NodeBB's team doing it, but I could be wrong there.) This MIGHT fix the memory leak issue, but we don't actually no for sure. There may be something else about our setup causing issues.
2. Stay on NodeBB but expand the RAM of our hosting plan (if that's the right term for it). This won't fix the memory issue but make it less prevalent. However, it could also reach the point where we're just in the same boat as time goes on. This also has a price tag, and I get the impression that it's not felt to be super efficient. (That is, we're making use of all the RAM, but practically none of the CPU, etc.)
3. Try to migrate to a platform like Discourse which has tools for migrating from NodeBB so as to not lose our board history.
4. Just start entirely fresh on a different platform and keep the current NodeBB setup live for a given period of time in read-only form.
5. Move the database from the current Linode VM to the local machine of a member. I assume this would be paired with keeping the current NodeBB+Redis setup.
6. There was a mention at one point wondering if moving to Digital Ocean would be of any help, I think mostly because they have a Discourse-specific droplet setup that should be pretty simple, so that is in the mix somewhere.

Please correct me if I've gotten any of those wrong.

Here are my thoughts, for what they are worth. I am not a mod here, I am just a frequent poster with very strong opinions about everything in the world.

• I think people would absolutely come to regret losing the board history. I know I would. Yes, we would of course all make do without it if it was necessary, but it seems preferable to explore other options before that.
• I am a rare person on MSB who likes NodeBB's style/design, but I would not be heartbroken if it was best for the board to move platforms.
• I absolutely think there are enough people who would pitch in funds that would pay for the migration cost of the first option.
• The idea of moving stuff to one person's local machine makes me weirdly nervous. It feels like a certain loss of control? Unless there's an issue with not having the funds to support a professional hosting solution, which I don't think there are, it seems like a step that could potentially bring its own problems that we don't have right now.

I think 1 or 3 are the most ideal solutions amid all of it. I don't know if there would be any cost savings in moving to Digital Ocean in conjunction with 3, or if it would help reduce the technical lift post-migration since it has that Discourse-specific droplet option. I imagine other folks would have more insight there. I would be absolutely willing to organize a GoFundMe for #1, and/or contribute to one someone else set up. I would also be willing to try and help with #3 with the caveats that I gave up top. I know there was at least a person or two in the thread who indicated that they have experience with database migration stuff and willingness to help.

I think that the real point is that, no matter what your setting, you should write your helpfiles for newcomers, not experts. If you're building a wiki for a WoD game, yeah, a lot of your players are probably going to have a lot of WoD experience, and yeah, you have source books which is where a lot of this stuff lives and you can't put it all on your wiki because copyright. But make it easy for newcomers to understand what the path is. "Here are the books, here are the pages in the main books that talk about Merits, here are the pages that talk about Attributes, here are the pages for X specific thing for this sphere, Y specific thing for that sphere." Yes, newbies will have to buy or borrow the source book, but make it as easy as possible for them to understand the connection between the parts of your chargen and the parts of the book. And the same thing for games based on a movie or TV show or whatever. Don't just kind of half-ass a whole "well we've all seen the show, you know what it is." You don't need to explain the entire plot of several seasons, but try to approach things from the angle of "How do we explain this setting to those who aren't coming in with preexisting knowledge."

BONUS! If you actually take time and care to think about how to write out helpfiles in this way that's designed to be efficient and informative, you'll also tend to make things easier and clearer even for your more experienced players.

@Sparks said in Which canon property/setting would be good for a MU* ?:

I think Arx's Info channel is similarly pretty active and helpful (even if like 70% of it consists of @Roz beating everyone else to the answer).

Sometimes I have to go to the bathroom, okay. I'm putting the squeeze on that last 30%.

@demiurge Your consistent characterization of these concerns as people wanting you to "sanitize" and "censor" your game feels pretty dismissive and unimpressive. Best of luck, I guess.

The Final Fantasy 7 remake got delayed, too.