@TNP It's Rick, our repeater troll. He created the account under the name 'Weimerican', to give you some idea.
https://dailycaller.com/2017/05/05/welcome-to-weimerica/
https://www.returnofkings.com/146430/a-guide-to-weimerica
Enjoy. (If you enjoy throwing up a whole lot.)
@Cupcake That story is best story.
(There is a list of people I am pretty sure I would react that way to, exactly. It isn't a long list, but there's definitely a list of people around whom I am certain I would utterly and completely forget how to speak English.)
Edit: OH! I also, actually, knew a dude with aquarmarine eyes, back in art school. He could indeed stare at you and make you forget you had knees. It must be a secret superpower, seriously. That he was a total stoner and tended to stare aimlessly at people (on many of whom this magical power was demonstrated) made it funnier, somehow, but you'd see conversations just... trail right off from the female end with dazzling, hilarious frequency. It was kinda awesome.
@Auspice After he changed the name and started off with something vaguely lucid, he had good camouflage, I gather.
@Roz We got everything but the heads, with one of our previous cats.
We had this mental image of her giant, calico cow-print fat ass lounging around in a smoking jacket in a room filled with trophies, a snifter of brandy, and a cigar for years.
To this day, we think most of these creatures were simply caught off guard, potentially laughing to themselves, because they did not expect the twenty-two pound blubber-bomb with fur and markings visible from space (especially in the grass) to actually try to pounce on them.
She also believed she was invisible whenever she stuck her head under a throw rug. She was a very special snowflake.
@mietze See, I only know of the one and now I'm deathly curious about the other two.
@Wizz I couldn't get any further than the 50 Shades of Brony contract agreement. I had to stop.
I think there's something to the idea of 'I wish I could retire and do one of my hobbies for a living' on a basic level in almost every hobby.
In some, it's more feasible than others. I mean, I've done it half a dozen times art-wise, just not with anything related to this hobby. But, like, this is how you end up making doll clothes or dyeing yarn or making Poser skins for a living for a handful of years, pretty much.
@Insomnia said in Issues with SimpleMu:
I'm not @surreality but I guess if we go way back in time, I could throw a Cabana Boy at her. (If I feel old, then I'm taking some of you with me!)
My husband would kill me. 
Even if sent over on the days when he works out of town, I'm sure the smell of coconut tanning lotion and pina coladas would give me away.
@gryphter Pretty much. There are a lot of talented people in the hobby, and the talents are pretty broad-ranging. Giving people a platform to network -- with a few reasonable CYA provisions -- is the sort of thing I'm always keen on.
The number of people who are highly gifted in photoshop and illustration alone is mind-boggling, and it'd be cool to see more games with genuinely custom artwork crowdsourced and provided this way, without anyone getting screwed in the process -- and that's just one aspect of it all.
@Insomnia What's extra funny to me is that... I'm on a mac, so no simplemu for me. 
I will happily share some of Bri's birthday cake, though. It's delicious. 
...god, we're old. o.o
@gryphter Exactly that. And people can still offer to do things for free, but that people could advertise sales commissions and similar directly would encourage the all-important 'no, really, creative work is still work!' principle.
@hedgehog ...I had a guest rant on that site, so I feel you. <toasts all the fellow old farts>
@gryphter I'm a bit weird in that I like things that create opportunity generally -- I think they work better than 'how can I make a living off this?' specifically from a game design standpoint. Granted... the system I've picked at for decades now on and off I would still release free online somewhere for other people to tinker with.
Task-based setups seem better for this hobby on the whole. And none of that is especially new. I know of someone who charged real money to write descs on a game at one point, for instance, on a game without a wiki where long purple descs were favored. Deviantart is covered in folks who do custom work.
Beyond that, I find that creativity sparks more creativity more often than not. That's a net positive.
Similarly, when people see this kind of very tangible contribution to the game world, most folks will tend toward treating it with a bit more respect, which can sometimes be an issue. Some folks kick over everybody's sandcastles because they don't see the work -- and if that's why they're doing it, this helps to some extent, and it rewards change to the environment through contribution rather than destruction. (Some people will still do it just to be jackasses, but that's what the ban function's for.)
@Thenomain said in RL Anger:
he looked like one of those unfortunate men who tho is now a college Senior or recent graduate, never grew out of his Sophomore year and never will.
^ This would be a truly excellent description for a character on a MUX. Just sayin'.
Obviously not a badass, but probably one hell of an entertaining NPC if nothing else!
@gryphter The concept I was toying with for ages had some in-game rewards for things like this, too. Some day I will get back to it! ...some day. Horror kinda ate me and is so comfy it stopped being a pressing thing to work on. A lot of it involved contributions to the urban legends of the place, creating rumors, even things like creating NPCs or businesses and bits of history. None of that was the potentially commercial side of things, but followed the same general principle that the more people can contribute/add to a thing, the more they tend to respect the similar works others have put in. Folks can then really see the way the world evolves with their contributions (and that of fellow players), and get the kind of 'that thing you came up with is super frickin' cool!' feedback that most games have going staffwards only, since there's not a lot that players can contribute in as visible a way.
At the start of the debate last night as each candidate was making their opening remarks, my dog went insane.
...so did the rest of us, I think. It was the natural reaction to the debate. As I mentioned to a friend yesterday morning: "I need coffee this morning like the debate tonight will need a laugh track. These are the only ways I think I may survive either."
@gryphter The main thing is having as broad a range of ways to contribute as possible. Some things were as simple as 'write a rumor about this NPC/business/etc.' or 'make up an account of someone coming across this creature for players to find', and similar, that are at roughly the same level of complexity as writing a pose or two.
It often isn't the things that require a ton of skill, precision, or knowledge that help build the environment in an immersive way -- it's things like 'that creepy warning painted on the wall of the abandoned house' or 'that local news report about the fight at the bar last week that the cops had to break up', which are relatively accessible for everyone. They're also the things that, omg, build up FAST as a to-do list if that's something you want to be able to provide for folks on the game and will keep you busy 24/7 even if you don't do anything else if you're flying solo on it as staff.
@WTFE I am officially getting old. My first thought was: Damn, those things would be a bitch to clean.
@Ghost This is all possible in mediawiki. (I know because I've done all of that in mediawiki.)
It's connecting it and integrating that to the game that's nontrivial, whatever codebase or setup you're using.
The reason I keep bringing this up whenever this topic comes up is that plenty of people already know mediawiki and it is relatively easy to learn compared to most else.
From what I gather, mediawiki is fully compatible with Ares, but not directly integrated in the way I'm describing. It's not as compatible with Evennia last I heard, though that may have changed since. Not sure on integration.
@Vorpal In fairness, I can think of two Robs I'd have to be under anesthesia to ever willingly encounter again.