@Arkandel said:
@Monogram said:
I use Potato. I like it, it reminds me a lot like SimpleMU. And I would go back to that if it was ever updated, but that seems pretty unlikely.
What features does Potato have that SimpleMU doesn't?
It can handle https links. 
@SG The biggest draw I know of that folks have is the live spell-checker.
I am super sad for anyone who can't use Atlantis. 
I just don't think "Everyone has the opportunity to apply for certain concepts but staff will use their judgment as to whose application to accept" is unfair. "Everyone gets everything they want" is not actually a point of fairness.
@Ganymede said:
@Sunny said:
Not everybody is capable of playing a (insert any difficult concept here) and why the fuck should we be forced to let them try?
@Roz made a good point about theatre here.
Directors in community theatre have their favorites. It's not because of "favoritism" or "nepotism";
(well, to be fair, sometimes it is)
@Arkandel said:
@Roz said:
Lol the real problem is probably that I've never played WoD
Some might call that a feature instead of a problem.
Only a problem as far as current communication.
I'M SORRY YOUR WORDS MEAN NOTHING TO ME
@Arkandel said:
@Roz said:
I feel like we might have very different application processes generally. I'm not sure! The idea of giving application feedback being out of the norm is strange to me, because it's been totally common on games I've staffed on to send a first draft of an application back with things that need some adjustment or clarification.
And it's not really like "your writing wasn't good enough." It's "this thing doesn't really make sense" or "this thing really isn't clear" or "this thing doesn't work in the canon because this reason." Not really a critique of actual writing style.
I think the difference comes from how we view the perspective application processes for a feature character and for a normal but perhaps more important one.
What you may be talking about and correct me if I'm wrong is a character concept such as say, a potential Carthian leader. No extra power other than perhaps allowed more dots in Carthian Status, that sort of thing. So with that come more stringent background requirements - everything has to make a lot of sense and be appropriate and there can't be any weird points that would have caused them to not be elevated to that level of high regard by their peers. However since nothing says other Carthian PCs have to obey or become a bottleneck if they aren't active it's a normal character in every other regard, and staff need not worry if the player turns out to be a bit of a weirdo or stops logging on they'll have a bigger than expected mess in their hands.
What I was talking about is more along the lines of "a five centuries old Lasombra priest rose from torpor and was sent to be the Bishop". That character has significantly more powerful than average and if played badly has the potential to derail a lot of PCs; care has to be taken in picking them than merely going through the background to make sure the t's are properly crossed, as it's much better to have no one playing him than someone who'll be bad at it. It's just that the pay-off if you do make the right choice for a player is high since they could rejuvenate the game with their mere presence - and by requiring them to run plot and distribute RP around that potential just increases.
That's how I look at it, at least.
Lol the real problem is probably that I've never played WoD (which I think is what your examples are from). I do have more thoughts that I will maybe put down later to explicate how I've run into this on the game I've played on!
@Arkandel said:
@Roz said:
Is staff just not giving you feedback or a reason in this scenario? Correct me if I'm wrong, that's just the impression I'm getting from your wording.
I'm not sure if feedback is going to make things better or worse. For starters it's so easy to come off as condescending by telling someone exactly why their skills aren't good enough. For another staff aren't professional writers or english majors, so being able to pinpoint the actual reasons something is 'okay' yet not 'great' isn't necessarily possible - let alone actually telling someone how to improve (although obviously I'm excluding the possibility that someone's writing is just bad or riddled with typos and spelling errors).
I feel like we might have very different application processes generally. I'm not sure! The idea of giving application feedback being out of the norm is strange to me, because it's been totally common on games I've staffed on to send a first draft of an application back with things that need some adjustment or clarification.
And it's not really like "your writing wasn't good enough." It's "this thing doesn't really make sense" or "this thing really isn't clear" or "this thing doesn't work in the canon because this reason." Not really a critique of actual writing style.
@Arkandel said:
@Roz said:
I can only speak to things like particular character concepts or powersets or something like that. Things where it's not that there's an internal opening, but rather just a type of character that we'd expect a higher quality of application on due to it being particularly powerful or something like that.
That's what I had in mind more or less. For example consider this scenario - staff want a veteran Werewolf with high Renown to come into the sphere since there aren't enough alphas for packs. I apply for it and write an application I believe is high enough quality... but I'm not picked. A few weeks pass, maybe I even figure it fell aside, then suddenly that Werewolf comes into the sphere possibly played by someone you've never heard of or wasn't even on the game to begin with.
Is staff just not giving you feedback or a reason in this scenario? Correct me if I'm wrong, that's just the impression I'm getting from your wording.
Again, I'm not generally dealing with things like filling positions of IC authority, so my perspective on this is different. It's more like we have a particular power or background feature on a list of restricted concepts and a player comes in and is like, I'm interested in one of those things, and we go, okay well just so you know that's a restricted concept so we look for a more in-depth application for it, and we probably talk to the player more during the app process and talking with them about the concept, etc. It's not positions that we're advertising as wanting or needing and someone comes up and apps and we go, psh no.
@Saulot said:
On every game I have ever played on when someone is allowed access to something that is normally restricted whispers of nepotism always creep up. Whether they are true, false, or have facts that back up these suspicions are often irrelevant.
That's pretty much the case if staff gives anything to a player. The best staffers can do is do their best to be generally transparent about things, but it'll never make everyone happy. That's just the way of things.
I also work in theatre professionally, so honestly part of me is like IT'S JUST CASTING THAT'S HOW IT GOES. Maybe I'm just mean and ruthless.
I'm not coming from the position of staffing on games with, like -- positions like that? So I can only speak to things like particular character concepts or powersets or something like that. Things where it's not that there's an internal opening, but rather just a type of character that we'd expect a higher quality of application on due to it being particularly powerful or something like that.
I also tend to be on smaller games, so we're talking a pretty low volume of inquiries for these kinds of concepts in general. I imagine it might be more of a mess if you're on a big game and have an opening for something a lot of players want.
At the end of the day, staff is staff for a reason. (Let's ignore shitty or unethical staff: that's an overall problem that causes anything involving staff discretion or insight to go south.) The idea that they shouldn't be allowed to use their own discretion in handing out particular character concepts is vaguely baffling to me.
Can everyone apply for concepts the game has marked as restricted or overdone? Yeah, as far as I'm concerned and on games I've staffed on. They're open for application, and that's the fairness and equality. But on games I've worked on, when we have restricted or overdone concepts, we're up-front about wanting an application with a little more depth to it. And you know what? If you're a shitty player who's been a problem, or even a great RPer who nonetheless flakes and disappears a lot, we're probably not going to hand over something restricted even if you have a really nice application. I don't actually think that's unfair or unequal.
I double not irregularly. I'll just drop a totally different alt into a scene and @emit the first character with it. It's only a logistical issue if you only have one alt.
I have a friend who we used to sometimes call the Wheel of Meg because she would literally decide on alt combos and scenarios for people who were trying to figure out what they should RP together. It was kind of hilarious, but also super awesome.
Yeah, I imagine that'd be trickier, because in a series like that with an overarching plot and mysteries, there's probably going to be interest in maintaining that canon. Superhero movies are much different beasts and don't tend to have as much dense canon mystery as a series like that.
I'm staff now on a Transformers game based on a really awesome ongoing comic that is more like that: it's got a long arc metaplot and is really dense with the details and mysteries. We keep comic events in mind for our plotting, but there's just no way we'd be able to wait on all the answers unless we put the game on hold for another couple years and wait for the series to hit 100 issues. (Which the writer has said is how long his initial plan is for.) Sometimes there's totally room to incorporate new events in a similar way, because we haven't established anything to the contrary and it's just a new story to add. Sometimes we make new stories and maybe that ends up different in the comics, but oh well.
@Arkandel XMM started back in like 2001 initially, so only the very first FOX X-Men movie was ever true canon. (I wasn't on the game for the whole time -- I was there for a couple years at the very start, wandered away from MU*s for a while, and then came back in 2009 until the game closed in -- what, 2012 I think?) I think I was gone before X2 came out.
Short answer is: not really. Definitely not alter existing canon. Crib cool ideas from the movies? 100%. I'm a firm believer that if you're setting a game in the continuity of an existing universe, you mark a point of divergence and you go AU 100%. You use stuff that comes out afterwards if you want to and if it fits, but you never go "oh this new canon doesn't match what we already did on the game, let's change the game after the fact." So XMM did some Stryker stuff, but they didn't overhaul things that had already been established in the internal game canon.
@Arkandel When I staffed on X-Men Movieverse for several years, we used to actually have conversations when a new X-Men movie was coming up. They 100% caused a surge in interest and applicants.
http://mudstats.com/ is probably what you want. Although it can take a while to get up a new game.
Anywhere I live or have lived so I can be a know-it-all.
Actually, I can't even dredge up firm feelings on this question. I don't think where a game is set really matters as much as how you use the setting and break out places within it that make for good RP.
The trailer makes it abundantly clear that the movie has no similarity to the comics arc -- thank GOD -- other than Steve and Tony getting into a snit.
Like, this movie is literally going to be Steve yelling DON'T TOUCH MY (BOY)FRIEND BUCKY and it's going to be glorious.
Okay everyone be honest how many times have you watched the Captain America: Civil War trailer
