Posts made by surreality

One of my great uncles was in one of the Italian military groups in Africa around then.

Another of my great uncles, his brother, was in a resistance group in Italy.

Both totally knew this about the other. They still had the occasional family dinner with all 11 siblings and their parents, back then.

1. What I would not give to be an Italian-speaking fly on that dining room wall.

2. I wonder if this is where the 'family tradition' of people in the family of my grandmother's generation pulling knives on each other in the kitchen came from, because it happened often enough to warrant the word 'tradition' being applied without a trace of irony. (Usually, it was over people adding shit to somebody else's sauce, but still.)

3. You have not actually lived until you've seen two little old Italian ladies in aprons emerge, rumpled and covered in tomato sauce, from the kitchen, hugging, while one of them is still holding a knife, after lots and lots of yelling in Italian. Because that's just... wow. No, this shit does not just happen in movies. Pretty sure that hasn't even happened in movies, come to think of it.

4. Somewhere, we still have some of the weird souvenir things that great uncle sent to my grandmother from Africa. They're weird generic 1940s tourist trinkets and she treasured them (because she loved all of her brothers very much, duh, and treasured everything she had been given by anyone in her family) but they're... not something we leave out on display, they're tucked neatly away in a drawer, wrapped up in bubble wrap. We all loved her too much to rid ourselves of them, but for many reasons, we... do not want them out and about.

@dontpanda The reverse happens a lot, too. "You just hate me because I'm <discriminated against group>!!!"

No, I think (generic) you are being a jackass because you're behaving like a jackass, and doubly so because you're trying to use 'I am discriminated against in life!' as a shield for crappy behavior that has nothing to do with <reason that person might be actively discriminated against by any reasonable measure>.

And this is where I tune right out of the thread. Cheers, y'all.

@griatch In fairness... I've tried the more people thing. It didn't work. I appreciate the suggestion sincerely, though.

I am best described as 'not a coder at all'. I stumble through everything I do, digging everywhere for tutorials and just keep trying things until something finally works -- which takes forever, but I've gotten places with it.

99.99% of any discussion on github is so far over my head that I don't even feel my hair ruffle or feel a breeze. It only ends up making me feel more stupid and incapable, in the end. People ask what, to them, is an incredibly simple question, and I'm like '...was that English?' and then I go hide under the desk.

@faraday The sad thing is, so much of that can be done in mediawiki... except the chat part.

When some day I win the lottery, 'pay someone to develop an extension that does this (and handles dicerolls) effectively' is very high on the dream list.

For a play-by-post/more forum-style game, it's possible already. You can basically set a log template with a feature to add 'poses' (which can be edited as needed, formatted, images, etc.) But. I don't think that's been tried before and while I'm gonna try it as an option on ProjektX, I don't know if people will take to it or not. (Pages also don't auto-refresh, so that complicates matters further; there'd need to be some purge-action integrated and I'm not sure that's 'there yet'.)

@ganymede My Ganymede interpreter is not working well this week, so I'm gonna ask for clarification there.

(I can't tell if that's a snark re: 'the developers are stupid for not just blowing this off because this is standard human bullshit even though we recognize elsewhere this is damaging and harmful bullshit people shouldn't do', or reinforcement re: 'people need to remember that developers are people and contain their abusive horseshit'.)

@alzie said in The Death Of Telnet: Is It Time To Face The Music?:

@surreality The loudest ones usually don't understand what you're doing anyways, but it's certainly not conducive to any of the developers 'give a fuck' rating if everyone keeps telling us how little they want it. Hope the project goes well.

^ This. And 'give a fuck' actually is the most vital resource. People can learn various forms of code if properly motivated; you can't learn 'give a fuck', and this kind of thing is a strong demotivator to those who would have to learn the code.

ETA: I think a lot of the problem is making something cross-platform. Most of the stuff you describe was all Windows-only, and there actually are a fair number of us mac users out here.

Just on the whole:

2016: I'mma kill all your darlings, break your heart, completely demolish your self-esteem, horrify you about the potential future of your country, scrag all manner of shit in your business, and fuck you over six ways to Sunday while the people you care about most betray you in the most hurtful ways possible in a sustained assault on your ability to survive it.

2017: Hold my beer.

2018: ???

@sparks That one really would be super helpful if it could be put in as a preset. So many people use that in a variety of chat/messenger/etc. things that it really is pretty handy.

@arkandel said in The Death Of Telnet: Is It Time To Face The Music?:

@rook said in The Death Of Telnet: Is It Time To Face The Music?:

People are getting personally offended by the voicing of opinions, so it seems much less a technical discussion than it is a preference discussion. I have tried to guide both of these threads into some sort of technical planning/dreaming/design direction, and each time people have apparently taken offense.

I don't think it's that bad. We can be passionate in all things, but it's not like anyone's going FUCK YOU while stating their preference, so that's fine.

Bluntly, that's not good enough. There's a reason I keep asking for a wholly constructive dev-specific forum where the bullshit behavior is reined in, and the bullshit behavior isn't just people flinging 'FUCK YOU' around. In fact, there have been plenty of instances in which someone acting like a giant asshat in a constructive discussion probably should be told 'FUCK YOU' and then roundly ignored thereafter to allow the discussion to continue in a productive fashion.

(Tangent: y'know what would kick ass? An 'ignore <poster>'s comments in this thread' option that isn't a straight-up ignore. There are some folks wholly awesome some places, who are walking disaster zones when it comes to specific subjects. /end tangent.)

There are however two issues here:

1. We don't really have a proper example of a telnet-less MUSH at the moment so any criticism of that is premature. Judging its potential by other web games which aren't even trying to do something similar to how a MUSH does things is flawed.

Ares is close, and it's very nicely done on the whole from what I have seen. I have not tinkered with the web interface because I like my MUX client and have things color-coded to visually separate them out conceptually/etc. to help my ADD brain cope with and sort the data flood properly.

And if you don't mind guys, a personal note at the end... it's expected that people will stick to what they know. We're a conservative bunch, and highly critical as things go. There's no way there won't be 'ohnothisiswrong' complaints no matter what is actually done, or (as @surreality has correctly sighed over at times) even over anything that's considered.

I don't think it's wrong to consider -- or attempt -- all of these things. Web interfaces, web integration, Ares, Evennia, etc. The doomsaying exists on all sides: "We'll all die unless... " can end with "...we stick to what we know!" or "...we change dramatically!"

Some reasonable design points surface in these discussions. All of them take advanced knowledge to implement, even if it's only partial implementation. And it's very clear that partial implementation is just not fucking good enough for some stompy feet, and bluntly, that's where a rousing round of 'FUCK YOU' is well-deserved and in fact the appropriate answer.

This hobby has come a long way, no matter how 'dated' it is. Every step along that way was, typically, a small step. It was not a quantum leap; it was a partial implementation that grew and evolved until it became something far more feature-rich and elaborate. Every time somebody shits all over a partial implementation or new direction someone is interested in exploring because it's not the quantum leap they asked Santa for when they were five, there's good reason I wish Santa would give them that pony they asked for that same year so it could kick them right in the fucking head, because this attitude is so egregiously ignorant of the reality of 'how things actually work' that it displays a sincerely galling measure of entitlement, selfishness, and brazen stupidity.

That places a higher onus on developers here. Not only do people need to be good with code but they need an extra thick skin to handle all these gripes without wondering too much why they're doing all this extra work for what sometimes seems like an unappreciative community. This is not the case. We are far from unappreciative. It's just that some voices bitch louder than many others praise.

No, I'm afraid it really isn't just that. I'd like to think it is? But it isn't. There was a time I would have agreed, but that time has long since passed.

There are... three people, I think? Who have seen the stuff I've actively been working on. One's not even on the forum. It's not going to get posted to the forum, either, until I'm done with the things I want to do with it and they're working how I want them to be. Would there be times that input would be helpful? Probably -- but the input generated here lately, even in the constructive areas, is far too full of the doom-saying, hand-wringing, and spoiled-child wish-listing for me to consider it worth my while to filter through all of that wretched chaff in search of wheat.

That chaff is demoralizing as hell, and it is not just a case of 'grow a thicker skin'. It is a lot of goddamned work, and it takes real positive energy and the ability to hope that it will make things at least just a little better in order to even attempt one of these things.

You can have an armadillo hide, and still have all of those necessary resources of positivity and faith in what you're doing sapped away from you fast by all of that bullshit, because it's exhausting and pointless, and soon enough, you're exhausted and the whole thing seems pointless, too.

People sure loved to mock me for dropping my project early in the year after -- in the constructive section -- it got attacked with both barrels and I got attacked personally in genuinely disgusting ways. They still do it, and it's very clear they very much enjoy doing it. That? That's what the thick skin is for: recognizing those people for what they are and blowing them off, ignoring them, and soldiering the hell on in (generic) your ass-kicking combat boots. (Mine are NewRocks, motherfuckers. Don't mess with the wedding boots! Ahem.)

Now, I can tell you this much. That I wasn't able to handle:

• people who apparently can't follow clearly-worded directions to save their lives
• think they're exceptions
• don't respect the actual question asked even in the form of the barest lip service from post one
• make statements that are demonstrably false as evidence that the sky is definitely going to fall
• sling around personal attacks in a space not remotely appropriate for that
• make fun of someone because they like different themes than the person doing the mocking
  ...did tell me: this is not the time I should be working on this project, it's something that's important to me, and because it's something that matters to me, this shit is stressing me out rather than chilling me out.

I put that shit down to save for a later time when I could deal with those things more effectively, because it was clear that no one felt the majority of those behaviors were wrong. (It's not what I'm working on now, either.) After all, what is the first thing we tell someone in this hobby when shit's going badly or RL is stressful? "Take a step back, recognize you're not in the right mindset for this right now, and come back to it later." But boy, howdy, do we love making fun of somebody for actually doing that, and that's spectacularly shitty, too. I get mocked for choosing to shelve it 'til later, too, still, despite the fact that this is absolutely the correct response -- people just really seem to enjoy interpreting it in ways that are deliberately intended to be as hurtful or harmful and insulting as possible.

That, in itself, should be eye-opening. Every single one of those behaviors, had it happened on a game, would show up in the Peeves thread as demonstrative of shitty behavior, and rightly fucking so, and we would all be piling on to talk about how shitty that behavior is.

So, no, 'thin-skinned developers' are not the fucking problem.

Please wake up to this one, because the struggle is real, man.

@faraday ...I am spamming the world's largest reply ever to Ark, but had to totally pause and scrap that post just to at you for this.

If I can find the thing in Atlantis I set to let that slip through, I'll post it. If you nudge @Sparks, she may be able to put that in as one of the exceptions or similar in later builds? Hopefully. I really do think it's genuinely one of those 'little things that helps'.

@rook said in The Death Of Telnet: Is It Time To Face The Music?:

I dunno if I should continue participating, as I am immediately (by my second post in this thread) coming back to the same 'arguments' and questions that I posted and came to in the other thread.

I am kinda in the same boat here.

I'm also trying to tinker with my thing again, and really? Not up for the hand-wringing and doom-saying and wish-listing.

I just know I'm working on something I think is kinda cool. I may need some help eventually, I may be able to figure most of it it out myself eventually, somehow. It is rather a lot of work, though, so I'd really rather step out on this kind of discussion for a while, because these discussions are not often inspiring any longer, they're incredibly demoralizing rehashes of the same hand-wringing, doom-saying, and wish-listing.

That said, want a real, simple suggestion for MUX/MUSH/etc.?

Set up a /me <pose> alias or command. This is one of those commands that exists in some form in a variety of messengers and so on that a lot of folks are used to from daily non-gaming life.

Currently, this requires both code and aliasing within the client software (in my case, Atlantis), and that is a pain the ass. (I managed to do it once, but probably not well and I couldn't tell you what I had to do in the client to make it work, as I don't remember.)

But, really. There you go, one wee hurdle taken out of the way that opens up access to a lot of people already accustomed to text mediums with immediacy.

(And how many times have all of us been skyping and then try to /me a pose in a game window? Yeah, I didn't think that was just me.)

I'm just going to leave this here.

@lithium ...maybe let's not go there in a farewell thread to a member of our community... ?

Double post: the best way I can think of to describe the 'you are not leadership material' crowd?

They want to be James Bond and M at the same time.

There are reasons that does not work.

@quixotic said in The limits of IC/OOC responsibility:

Also I generally think "what you find fun in RP" will inform your happiness/success as a leader. It's helpful to actually enjoy the kind of RP you get playing a leader: delegating, guiding, etc. If you RP to solve plots and use all your cool powers, don't be a leader. A lot of leadership is giving up the ability to do that so that your group people can.

^ This. To me, one of the top three leadership qualifications someone must have -- in any capacity -- is 'creates opportunities for others (to do more than oooooh and ahhh at you)'.

It is stunning how few people grok that one, when it just seems... obvious.

@ganymede I think that breakdown might be helpful anyway, even if it's just for your planning.

Make a list of things you want players to be able to do with complete autonomy.

Make a list of things you don't ever want to see happen on the game, period.

See how much of what's left can go into the first category after you take a few deep breaths, then figure out mechanisms to handle the remainder.

@faraday said in The limits of IC/OOC responsibility:

Yes, it's super dooper amazing when you get a player who's able and willing to be a great IC/OOC leader. But I really think it's time we stopped designing our core game concepts around ideas that only work when you're lucky enough to get a rare unicorn to play them. Then people can just relax and play without worrying about devoting X hours a week to administrivia (IC or OOC). Then this idea of "responsibility" falls away for everyone who's not staff.

A big part of this, too? It isn't just that leader that gets saddled with the additional overhead -- it's everyone under them, too. They just have less agency, really, when it comes down to it, since the decision-making power is in the hands of someone they have to track down and ask, and plenty of games require this to be through some IC method, which means arranging for a scene or using some other IC communication method.

If there's not someone who has to give a 'yes/no' to most things, you have a basic policy, instead: "here is the list of stuff that's totally OK, go ahead and do it, here's the stuff you should check with staff about first, here is the list of stuff we simply do not do here" -- and you're more or less done. Bonus points if the latter lists are extremely short and straightforward.

@ganymede Exactly. If a game is not going to implement such a thing, I am very likely to side-eye them hard.

Policing is different, as 'keeping an eye on what people are doing at any point over the course of their time on the game for inappropriate IC shenanigans' is a different animal, and much more viable. (And it still has pitfalls, but compared to gatekeeping? Still so much more viable.)

I honestly think 'gatekeeping' positions IC are bad news for a game, period.

IC policing is a different animal.

The initial 'is this character a permitted type for this sphere' call is something that should be handled in chargen, so the 'and now we shall have an IC gatekeeping process for this PC that OOC we know is within allowed standards for the game' step seems like it's just far too prone to abuse and bad calls that completely destroy someone's game experience.

Does it require a small measure of handwavium? Yes. But it's of a kind that prevents people from going through character creation again if somebody gets a bug up their ass or decides to power-trip.

Things like this are why I always loathed the very idea of the 'Welcome Wagon' groups in Changeling spheres. Yes, IC, they serve a purpose -- but in the interest of 'we are all players who want to have fun'? They are pure detriment, because the players in question already know the character they're grilling passes muster. It becomes nothing more than a shitty trap, at best, for the unpopular, newbies still learning a bit who kludge something as a player goof that the character wouldn't have made, or people outside the clique if a clique manages to get into this role.

@ganymede Must agree.

I still bawled like I have never ever bawled when we had to let Ancient Cat go -- and it was going to happen within 24-48 hours whether we took her in or not.

It did not help that she kept putting her paws up on my collarbones and trying to hide in my cleavage or in my hair like she did every time we went to the vet (and the first day we spotted her at a pet store; there were grabby children, and when she was randomly handed off to me, she burrowed into my shirt to hide and peek out to see if it was safe or not yet, so there was no not bringing the baby home; dammit, sniffles again... ). This was extra adorkable when she was a full-grown fluffy pudge-butt.

It's a hard moment. A necessary one, but it is hard.

ETA: Apologies if I'm coming off extra mopey or bitchy on this one. Ancient Cat passed due to multiple tumors in her chest (not in areas they would have been visible) that were ultimately crushing her lungs and her heart. Within the past two weeks, a good friend of mine in the hobby went from 'a cough' to... multiple cancerous tumors in his chest that are impacting his lungs and his heart. This has had... some prominence in mind over the holidays.