Best posts made by surreality

For quite some time, I trusted someone I thought was credible.

I found out the very hard way that this was not the case, and just how incredibly vile their take on various people really was.

I do not know if something is wrong with them that they do this, but I really don't care. That person is no longer my problem. I have learned my lesson: do not, under any circumstances, believe what that person has to say about anyone.

I spent a long time doing so.

That was stupid, and that was wrong. That I didn't know any better does not absolve it even a little. That I seriously feel like complete shit about it doesn't, either. I was way too willing to hear ugly things about a variety of people and believe they were true, and that is absolutely NOT OK.

I'm still traveling, so I can't really attend to this now in regard to specific people from this stupid tablet, but I damned well intend to make ammends and apologies as best I can -- not non-pologies -- to the people I may have hurt as a result, and to those who are open to hearing them.

If you think this applies to (actual) you out there, please let me know. I should be home on the 5th but will reply to PMs as I am able in between. There are people I know of already that I will be trying to reach out to when I get home.

I'm not kidding about this; I feel like shit knowing I was probably a party to other people going through the crap I recently did. I'm pretty fucking horrified by it.

@downwithopp said in An Apology to BSO and BSU.:

Sorry if you're going to be an ass about it.

^ This is not how actual apologies work.

@arkandel It comes with another caveat: 'the process of social admonishment' == 'popularity contest'.

Right and wrong are very rarely determinative; 'how many friends you can rally to all scream at the same person at once or attack them', on the other hand, frequently does.

@mietze said in The 100: The Mush:

It sounds like you're doing the good things like bothering to check (either overtly or not) if your partners are enjoying themselves. It's the people that do not that make folks leery. Or when someone cannot express that they're finding constant unprovoked antagonism tiresome/stressful/unfun and they're told that it must be just because they don't like anything that doesn't make them perfect. That's not true for a lot of people (I know it is for some!); sometimes they mean what they say--that they're just not finding constant personal antagonism that fun when it totally dominates everything they try to participate in and is directed at them.

Bolded for emphasis.

Anything that is 'all you ever get' IC gets tiresome. All tea parties gets tiresome. All TS gets tiresome. All high-octane no-time-to-breathe, yes, gets tiresome. Even for the few who genuinely can't ever handle not being perfect, I'm betting endless people telling them, "You're so perfect!" gets tiresome.

A varied experience is important to continued interest.

A balanced positive/negative experience can also help, but isn't quite as necessary (IMHO); heck, studies have shown the reason people gamble is because out of the twenty tries, that one win keeps people coming back despite the nineteen losses (and those are odds way better than people actually tend to get in gambling). So you don't even need to have a balance in the win/loss columns, because the wins count for a lot.

If you don't ever have them, though, you're back to the point above: there's no variance. There's only losses. That is going to make someone lose interest much, much faster.

And this goes for a 'win' however that person chooses to define it. It may be coming out on top in an IC argument. It may be saving the day and being the hero in a combat. It may be getting one over on the hero and luring them into a trap. It could be someone, yes, telling them once they're the prettiest princess ever -- even when the other nineteen times they're totally ignored.

That variance is essential. If people don't find it, boredom sets in fast.

If everyone is fighting to take on the starring role of 'king/queen asshole', yeah, you're going to have an issue, because that's a take-take-take environment, not a shared space environment. IC, everyone may absolutely be out for themselves and themselves alone, but that's not really an appropriate attitude for players to take. As players, we need to remember that we are sharing space with other players, and that means sharing the resources of that space -- be it in the form of attention, the hero/villain roles, the IC resources of locations or GM time, slots in limited events, etc.

Edit: This really, really goes back to a 'playground rules' thing again. It's been a while for all of us but we learned 'em all a ways back, y'know?

^ Pure awesomeness.

@nymeria said in Blood of Dragons:

@testament said in Blood of Dragons:

I admit I'm slightly surprised that people are still playing it, given what's already been said, at length, about it.

Strange, isn't it? Or could it be that some things that have been said simply aren't true? And that other things that have been said are things that some players actually like about the game?

The primary negative re: Blood of Dragons and this community has nothing to do with the game itself. Let's not be disingenuous on that point from any perspective.

The reason much of the portion of the MSB forum that carried over from WORA takes a dim view of the game has everything to do with your behavior in community spaces, and not quibbles about the game itself. Let's not pretend the forum community is running around spreading lies about the game to make you look bad; you accomplished that entirely on your own quite some time ago from the perspective of many here, and that attempt to sling shade is more than just a little shady in itself.

Like many others, you could create the most perfect game to ever exist, and plenty of people here wouldn't go within a mile of it out of distaste for you personally. Same is true of many other game runners here, same's true of me if I ever open a place, etc. You made your bed, do lay in it without the persecution complex and accusations, please.

@A-B It's sounding like there are a lot of concerns and complications for you about this endeavor.

Time zone issues are tough, but on a large enough game you may be able to find a decent crew of US nightowls or early risers. The problem with this is that large games are not at all common, and the number of them seems to be shrinking steadily year by year. RPIs apparently trend larger, so if you're looking into that, you may have better luck there also.

This is likely going to sound harsher than I intend, but it's something I feel needs to be made abundantly clear. I have major social anxiety, general anxiety, and long term major depression, so I'm not speaking in a cavalier way about something I don't understand, or don't have long term personal experience coping with.

What you seem to be seeking from whatever game you ultimately find is not going to be the answer. In a normal phase of human history, you would be very lucky to find a game that satisfies the need for interaction brought on by isolation. It is nor the responsibility of any game on the internet to provide the emotional support and resources, or an alternative, to prevent or change social isolation.

There's a lot to this, because while you may not be expecting a new cadre of besties or someone to play emotional support lifeline or counselor, you have: repeatedly outlined things you feel staff should have done based on your emotional needs and isolation; repeatedly claimed they should have overlooked, excused, or forgiven based on these things. These things are also not OK.

You ask for empathy and forgiveness, you don't ask for a free pass and insist they did it all wrong and it's so unfair based on your circumstances, you do not ask them to make special rules or change their existing rules or practices to suit you, and while you have done so politely in my estimation through this thread, you have done this consistently.

That is not how this works.

It is especially not how it works in this period of worldwide WTF. People who have zero experience with isolation are already struggling, and I have a genuine non-snark concern that if you talk about how you're in one of these spaces to escape RL isolation and expect some indulgence on the part of staff or other players because of a combination of anxiety and isolation, you are going to get sledgehammered by people screaming, "Join the fucking club!" as it is something the vast majority are dealing with.

The only people I know of who are NOT dealing with it are even worse off, stocking shelves or in the health field, at major risk and subject to incredible if not outright insane circumstances. Plenty of them are right here in the hobby, and like all of us who are in various shades of lockdown, they're trying to engage in a little fun escapism in the tiny scraps of time life affords them to do so.

Everyone's nerves are fried, and Gany put it far better than I could: these games have their own low thrum of steady stress. It is considerably worse right now. Looking for relief from isolation on these games is something that seems like common sense in a lockdown -- temporary or as a part of normal life for any given person -- but it isn't the easy solution it may seem, and that's in a normal time. You're less likely, right now, to get the kind of empathy and understanding you seem to be looking for because everyone's so stressed and screwed.

OK, so, I lied. I also came back to share this link -- https://imgur.com/a/dE5PmGB -- to album of flouf. (Ignore my messy as fuck desk, lord knows I try to.)

Her antics have been getting me and the husband through; hopefully her silliness will give y'all a reason to smile, too.

Here. FINE. I see how it is. Have some boobies.

And the predictable accompaniment of:

OMG, my computer chair. My keyboard. HOW I HAVE MISSED YOU BOTH.

(Also, home. Yay! Whew. I now have no excuses but 'might be a crazy frothing gibbon' for typing like a crazy frothing gibbon.)

@Arkandel I wouldn't limit it to that. Head-voices come in many flavors, and they don't necessarily bear any relationship to what anyone else is saying (to someone, behind their back, or otherwise).

"Huh, they didn't respond to my page. Are they ignoring me? Their idle time suggests they're active... "
"S/he keeps gushing about my PB. Do they like my roleplay, or are they just fantasizing about what my PB looks like?"
"I didn't get included in the @mail for the faction event... am I not welcome?"
"Oh, shit, staff is paging me, I must be in trouble!"
"They're super active on their alt, but really slow posing back to me. I must be really boring and shitty compared to that other person."

^ Brain monsters.

That's a really, really short list, and we've all seen those things often enough.

...she has, of course, already found the dark laundry pile. Because of course she has.

I'll just be over here in the corner, dead of cuteness. She's hard to get pictures of because she's been prancing and headbonking the camera every time I try. Her full name is now Tama Gothsbane McDaintysnoot, and she is an amazingly good snuggly lil girl.

@Derp said in Dead Celebrity Thread:

In reading this list, I have become aware of the death of Miss Cleo. How the hell did I miss that?

...how did she not see that one coming?

@Ganymede ...in all seriousness, that's how I got my bestest cat ever.

I wanted to see her out from her cage. Mother went "I do not care that it is your birthday, you are not getting a cat. NO."

Family with grabby toddlers gets kitty out of cage while I'm standing right there.

Kitty leaps out of their hands and burrows down my shirt and into my cleavage, hiding, only to look up at me with Kitty Big Eyes<tm>, at which point I just looked at my mother.

"...sigh. Happy birthday, dear."

She was bestest cat.

@Lotherio said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

I think some of us are saying we all need to be adult and consider everyone’s awkward feelings in the shared environment.

Quoted for truth.

On some level, this is a 'playground rules' issue to me.

Two kids are playing with a ball at recess. A third would like to play, too.

It's great when the first two see the third approaching and say, "Hey, wanna play with us?"

It's great when the third asks, "Hey, can I play, too?"

It's not great when the first two ignore the third.

It's not great when the third runs up and grabs the ball from the first two and forcibly starts a different kind of ball game.

This is not complicated unless the first two are playing a one-on-one that's necessarily one-on-one, in which case you have the following options that don't involve being not great:

• Table the one on one for later and start a new game that involves more than two people.

• Be politely proactive and let the third party know you're playing a one-on-one game right now that's important to you, and would like the chance to finish up before adding new players.

Ultimately, these are the two options.

Yes, the first pair can leave the public space to continue their scene privately, but this isn't as relevant as it may initially appear, because it still leaves the third party alone in the public space. Unless there's more than one wishing to join or there are others heading in, the third person is no better off if this happens than if they step out on their own.

We learned this in kindergarten, didn't we?

@Ganymede said in Harassment in VR, there's something we can likely learn from this.:

You said that the player in question was capable of handling herself. I presume that means she knows when her threshold has been reached, and she contacts staff to demand action. So, yes, I am one of those banhammer people, but I'd probably opt with a stern warning to stop haranguing people with pages.

A better way to address such situations is to remind players of acceptable behavior on a regular basis, regardless of what's going on.

The best way is if people stop being page-harassers. That'd be fucking nice.

There's a really fucked up mentality out there that goes roughly like this: "I am interested in you, therefore you are obligated to return that interest in me." It is not often a conscious mindset, but it is one hell of a pervasive one.

I remember a long argument in the way-way-wayback days on WORA (or possible SWOFA? I don't recall and it doesn't actually matter which) that went roughly like this:

"I played all the romance stuff the girl likes, so she needs to make with the TS."

People actually, in all seriousness, argued both sides of this as though there was an argument to be had on that issue. Really. No matter how stupid, it is very telling re: how prevalent this kind of mindset is that there was even an argument about this at all.

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

Further, I can't really imagine any society that prostitution in one form or another wouldn't happen.

There is actually a full thread on this elsewhere. Specifically.

In the end, the one thing I can't get past is this: there's no stigma about eating as a part of life in the world we know today. We still pay exceptionally good cooks to feed us once in a while because they do what they do so well, their skill as a cook is valued and appreciated and enjoyed, and thus they can make a living at it. There is zero shame and zero stigma: it's a part of life, it's normal.

If someone insisted that we shouldn't have professional chefs in the real world because for too long women were forced to cook and slave for their man or something similar, they'd get a confused-puppy-esque head tilt out of me before I abruptly decided they were not worth the time to argue with before just adding them to the mental catalogue of crazy people I needn't waste my time on.

THAT SAID, if a game wants to make a rule that says, "You know, we really just don't want characters of this type on our game," -- which they more or less did in all fairness here -- that's no harm, no foul. Leaping the logic around to poof it into nonexistence in a way that creates a new stigma that wouldn't rationally exist under those circumstances is just not even worth poking with the world's largest bargepole. Go with the 'we don't want to see the character type here' and really, just let it go. The mental gymnastics aren't worth the time, and they aren't going to change the reality on the ground anyway. (Generic) We play on games with dragons and vampires and psychic space aliens; just suspend that disbelief and move on.