Posts made by Roz

@Catsmeow Yeah I have definitely heard the exact opposite of that.

@WTFE You can actually find staff's response to Custodius joining earlier in this thread. Way earlier though, probably. But it came up and was publicly responded to.

@Tempest He plays Max. (He definitely wasn't ever Leo.) And yes, he should most definitely be gone.

What kind of movies do you like? What kinds of books? There's comics in pretty much every genre imaginable, just like any other form of narrative media.

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

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

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

I kind of feel compelled to point out that this isn't a static issue. Thrax IS evolving.

1. Several members of Thrax and their vassals have either openly or quietly indicated their desire to remove the institution.

2. Political and trade alliances have been made to aid in releasing significant portions of the thrall population.

3. Vassals now have the ability to modify the institution in a variety of ways, such as no longer imposing the debt of a parent on a child, minimum age requirements to be placed in thralldom, etc.

The goal with this is to abolish the institution without destroying Thrax economically, as well as be able to guide those in thralldom slowly into their rights and freedoms. And it is happening at a measured rate. Whether it's happening fast enough for all parties is a matter of IC discussion.

Which I think is awesome!

I don't. That is, depending on the extent of what happens. I find it ridiculous that after many centuries, an ingrained institution is suddenly changing because the game opened and players' OOC beliefs on slavery are 'it's bad' and want thralldom abolished.

I think believing anything else would ever happen on a MU* would be wildly optimistic.

@Shincashay Thralls can be brought into Arx, but only to remain in the Thrax Ward. Because the Wards are basically like embassies. They run under their high lord's law.

@Shayd I feel like you're underestimating the cost of this kind of war and the value of political alliances. As soon as one kingdom gets steamrolled for doing something the others don't like, it opens thew hole can of worms. What happens when Valardin does something the other houses don't like?

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

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

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

@Arkandel : To be honest, I feel uncomfortable probably more because I think it's just me bringing up issues which are considered settled and overdiscussed and overargued. Also, I fucking hate slavery and thralldom A LOT. I don't want to look at it as an opportunity for roleplay when in reality if I discovered someone was holding thralls and had the weapons and political tools to stop it, I damned well WOULD, by force, and the idea that all the high and mighty noble houses that are "good" have been around for a thousand years and NOT rolled on Thrax like a Mack truck over a gopher makes all of those houses at the least complicit considering the fact that they're in an alliance. Which with the current threat makes sense to make uneasy allies, and that's how I'm roleplaying it; and willfully ignoring that for hundreds of years these houses have been sitting at the same table with a bunch of goddamn slavers.

There are a few ways to look at this. Let me go over ones which are not specific to Arx.

For starters, saying "I fucking hate slavery" in that manner seems to imply those who play character that support it are, in some way, okay with it OOC. I hope I don't need to explain the impropriety of that. We are all playing characters who are flawed in a lot of ways; I've played Werewolves who thought nothing of murdering a bunch of people to get their way, yet I assure you I don't condone murder.

Secondly it's very dangerous to use so many instances of the phrase "I would" when you are referring to roleplay. That's the idea of, well, playing a role. If you can't separate your own feelings from those of your characters' - or if a topic is sensitive for you for whatever reason - then yes, I would say it's best if you avoided playing about it. But please, for all that is holy, avoid putting your OOC voice into play. It's a really bad idea for all concerned parties. A quick rule of thumb is if you ever find yourself having to justify your character's actions to another player ("but he is RIGHT!") you are already straying off the path; whether your PC is 'right' or not is utterly irrelevant.

Again, please note none of this has anything to do with Arx. These are fundamental concepts.

@Arkandel : I agree with you on the first point. I do not think that people are okay with it OOC; and my passion here obviously overflowed. Let me rephrase it slightly by saying: I don't understand how a House so firmly associated with Honor and Good which my character is a part of hasn't gone on a crusade to wipe them from the face of the earth.

See: the long history of "good" world leaders refraining to interfere in other countries committing atrocities.

@Cupcake Yeah, the other thing is that steamrolling over Thrax would also involve murdering a lot of innocents along the way.

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

Something must have changed since Alpha if no Thralls is a thing? I seem to recall some noblewoman who was a Thrall.

People referred to Margot at one point as a Thrall on channels which was just -- not correct. But it might be what you're thinking of?

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

First: Thanks for the kind and polite replies, I never know what I'ma get here.

@saosmash : I don't see it all the time; I'm just afraid to RP about sex because I keep thinking I'ma get it wrong per the game, despite me-the-player being an SJW libertine. Sorry about hitting the prostitution argument again. I think that's actually part of my SJW thing because I have known a lot of sex workers in my lifetime and the idea that they should be innately stigmatized bugs me, and I need to let go of that.

Are you saying that you think the profession would be innately stigmatized in Arx? Because that's not the case. Any stigma discussions have probably come up in regards to how deepset the stigma is in our society, which is one of the things that makes it a hard concept to integrate.

@Roz , @Cupcake : That'd be fine if there weren't (a) an anti-PVP community AND (b) players who seem to occasionally fetishize the idea of being pirates/capturing thralls/etc and support it. I get that some of them are roster characters chargenned that way. But if we're so enlightened about sex, one would imagine that beating the crap out of slavers would be right up there. Especially when Thrax is outnumbered by 4:1 and we've had a thousand years of internecine warfare with them.

@Arkandel : To be honest, I feel uncomfortable probably more because I think it's just me bringing up issues which are considered settled and overdiscussed and overargued. Also, I fucking hate slavery and thralldom A LOT. I don't want to look at it as an opportunity for roleplay when in reality if I discovered someone was holding thralls and had the weapons and political tools to stop it, I damned well WOULD, by force, and the idea that all the high and mighty noble houses that are "good" have been around for a thousand years and NOT rolled on Thrax like a Mack truck over a gopher makes all of those houses at the least complicit considering the fact that they're in an alliance. Which with the current threat makes sense to make uneasy allies, and that's how I'm roleplaying it; and willfully ignoring that for hundreds of years these houses have been sitting at the same table with a bunch of goddamn slavers.

Well, I mean, sure, all the other houses could try to get together and defeat the greatest naval power in the Compact by way of their own navies. They outnumber Thrax, sure, but do their ships?

But even just in a larger sense -- going to war with one of the other kingdoms is a big deal, and it basically sets up a dynamic where, like -- "if one kingdom doesn't like what another is doing within their own lands, we're going to gang up and steamroll you into destruction." It's not that it could never happen, but from a political and military standpoint that's not really the type of thing you want to do except for the most extreme of reasons. We're based in a system where a lord's word in their own domain is paramount, from baronies up through the high lords. This is a Big Deal. It's a Really Big Deal to try and mess in someone else's domain who is not in your line of fealty (and even there, politics dictate a certain amount of diplomacy).

It is absolutely heinous that Thrax has been allowed to continue doing this for hundreds of years. I think that's part of the point. But I think it's also pretty accurate to human nature in regards to how major political powers interact with each other.

@Shincashay You can marry like second cousins but closer is incest taboo.

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

Reading about the bans and the logs, especially with the former being so, as someone stated 'nuclear' as far as a reaction, my fear is that it's going to make players more afraid of staff than willing to reach out to them, as it has done with me. I'm legit //terrified// of saying //anything// in OOC, be they pages or public channels, that it will be taken the wrong way, presented to staff, and then held against me at some later date, no matter how great my reputation for being a helpful player is. I don't want to log into a game where I'm scared half the time that I'll do something that I think is at worse, neutral and at best, helpful, and have it taken to staff and presented as me being something I sincerely wasn't. I'm trying to trust that my previous actions and general track record will ensure that staff will talk to me first before making such a 'nuclear' decisions as banning me, but at the moment it's hard to get past all the knee-jerk reactions and rampant rumors.

I say this while I deeply love the game and in general the Arx community. I really hope things get better and don't degrade into an environment full of anxiety and fear. I love my character and I'd hate to lose him just because I was misunderstood.

I am pretty sure that neither of the two recent bans (or any others that I've heard about, really) were really only because of one single conversation with no prior history of conflict. There's usually a final straw in instances like this, but it's rarely the first straw.

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

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.

Okay, I now realize what this is referring to, and yeah I think your character probably expressed themselves poorly in their journal. Also it was like -- involving another character shortly after the love of their life died? So it was pretty IC for them to be sensitive to someone publicly commenting in a negative light about the relationship.

@yourmamasayswhat Aw, thanks!

@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.

@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.

Yeah, it's ridiculous to think you need a game to be open more than a year to recognize there are awful players you don't want playing in your space.

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

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

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

I'll say it again, it's being staffed by people that staffed on Firan. Why anyone expected anything different to the mentality that prevailed there, I have no idea.

Having suffered at the hands of those loons before, I do not see the same mentality from Firan in Arx.

Did you disagree with staff though? I don't know if you have, I'm just saying that in the most extreme cases of drama I've seen in my years MUSHing there are always people saying "well, I didn't see anything", which happened to be because they were - by design or otherwise - on the right side. It's easy to escape unscathed if there's nothing to go after you about.

I will state for the record that I have disagreed with staff in conversations with them without being banned and I know others who also have. This is not commentary either way on the justification of this particular event, but just saying that IME it's not the case that anyone who puts a toe out of line gets thrown off the game.

@Ghost Okay officially double-checked and I was correct, she didn't pay S&S a visit (unless it was after both Elf and myself were gone from the game).

@Ghost I'll ask him next time he's online and I think of it. I do have memory of hearing when I was on staff there that it was expected, but hadn't happened.