Posts made by surreality

@Arkandel said in Is there a basics of CG out there somewhere?:

@ThatGuyThere said in Is there a basics of CG out there somewhere?:

Maybe I am missing something but are cgen commands hard to figure out?

Don't think 'hard' - although some are, or are buggy, etc. Think 'unfamiliar'. It's the same thing as nearly any new interface to a user, it takes a bit to figure it out.

I asked Theno once if character data was all in MySQL tables anyway so that we could just make a web interface for CGen. That'd be as ideal as I can think of it, because then we could have a character sheet taken straight out of a WoD book (or whatever) to let players fill out the dots, then magically they'd have the corresponding +sheet in-game. Unfortunately that's not possible with the codebase.

An alternative could be letting the users do the same same thing, of course, and have it spit the in-game commands ready to be pasted. Not as neat but it'd probably work.

Actually... both of those are arguably possible with wiki integration. I've been able to make a wiki form that spits out data to C&P into the game, and with the ability to bring individual template variables over from the wiki to the game, provided the game goes with 'open sheet', this is entirely possible. It's in the works for 7D actually (even if that's presently on hiatus while I de-funk the brain).

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

Other people have made the point as well. There was a period where WoD players were particularly pushy about being allowed to do shitty things to other characters, and we did spend a great deal of time trying to find a way to balance IC theme to OOC behavior but here's the thing: We didn't see it that way.

When we started seeing it that way, we cut it out. In the last three to five years, a shitty WoD player is far more recognizable as separate from their shitty WoD character.

Now that there's coffee and some sleep and lucidity, I want to specifically address this, because it deserves to be mentioned.

Having been (referring to myself here) one of the loudest, shrillest, most pig-headed voices re: people behaving like monstrous shits and why it's not cool?

I have seen this change happening.

I have seen the attitudes around this changing.

All you really have to do is look at that example -- a dozen years ago, 'I played romance, she owes me TS!' was an actual argument to be had -- to see that things are changing in this hobby, and they're changing for the better in a number of ways on this front especially.

That deserves much more recognition than it actually gets.

Responses to things, action on things, are not always perfect, but that people's eyes are opening to some of the actual problems and viewing them as such is exactly why I posted this in the first place -- namely, we're not the only community that's struggling with it. It's worth looking at how other communities address it (even if I don't think their answer is necessarily one we could implement in the same way, there might be something about that approach that will inspire an idea here for folks to run with, etc.).

Also: having talked about this stuff with @Thenomain specifically from time to time when these issues have cropped up: dude, thank you for taking them seriously. It counts for a lot, and you deserve to hear it -- out loud, and in public. Even if we have different ideas of what to do about any given thing sometimes, that there's an understanding that something should be done at all? That's... actually a pretty huge milestone, should not be overlooked. It's one the community seems to be taking to heart, and taking seriously.

As much as I get frustrated and grouchy with this hobby and the community from time to time, on the whole? I'm pretty proud of the collective 'us' on this front, and there's good reason for it.

@Pyrephox If I could upvote this post three hundred more times, I would. Everybody please upvote this post? This post deserves so many more upvotes than my meager account can give it. Because holy hot damn is that truth.

People like to forget, often, that in the atmosphere for which the system is written -- a table, in the flesh, where people are visible and invited into someone's RL space and in punching and/or dice-throwing range -- these things are used on NPCs, and not fellow players. The shit people try to get away with online would never fly at any table I've ever seen.

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

It's separating the two that is the issue. And really that shouldn't be up to the woman who is being bothered to sort it out.

I was mentioning in a PM convo something along these lines. If it wasn't for the fact that I know for certain that the player who did it has serious social... we'll just politely call them 'challenges', I would have read them the riot act rather than just be creeped out and resolve to never, ever engage the player again save for in a staff/professional capacity.

A character I was playing had been in two scenes with this dude, both of which involved philosophical discussions with precisely ZERO flirtation of any kind. My character was deliberately gawky, awkward, and non-sexy. She was a frumpy, socially awkward, librarian with a temper. (So hawt, right?) No flirtation or playfulness at all OOC with the player in conversation, either. Anyway, fast forward a few weeks, and my character is on +where as being in a bedroom with someone. Whether they were using the bed or not is sorta irrelevant, because we all know that's what everyone assumes the moment they see 'bedroom', and that particular stupidity is a stupidity to rail against at some other time; the only relevant thing here is: the assumption is definitely there.

This dude pages me and my RP partner, and asks him if he'd like any help in there with my character.

...

Yeah.

He clearly thought this was completely acceptable behavior, rather than being supremely gross on more levels than I can count without resorting to rabid frothing.

If I didn't know this dude has the social skills of a rotting turnip, that frothing would have emerged to drown that guy in enough foam to make it look like somebody took a fire extinguisher to his dumb ass.

@Pyrephox Yup, that. For some folks, 'taken' just means "not only will I get the object of my interest, I'll get one over on someone else on top and prove I'm superior!"

@Ganymede The last bit? Oh, how I wish it wasn't.

But it is.

It so is.

Hilariously so.

@Arkandel Sadly, I don't think so.

Too many people will assume someone is still 'open for business', simply not give a shit, start talking smack about the partner/start trying to undercut the partner, or spout the 'you are not poly-friendly and therefore you are an inferior monogamous being, I will liberate and enlighten you with generous applications of my ginormous dong!' bag of bullshit.

I do like how KD's wiki and some other L&L games mention relationship status. Something in prefs/etc. could mention this sort of thing as well.

@Ganymede This is because while not all women are totally into the dick, we can appreciate good balls. You most assuredly have balls (said in the most complimentary of all possible ways), and that is very much awesome.

@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.

@Arkandel A really good friend of mine used the analogy, 'for a guy, a shortcut through a dark alley is a quick route home or an adventure, for a woman, it's the looming threat of a sexual assault waiting to happen.' He isn't wrong.

It's also amazing how the very same person doesn't see how, sometimes, games can be precisely the same way. Show up alone and on your own as a dude, and there's a world of possibilities. Show up alone and on your own as a chick, and too often, you're considered easy prey by the less savory folks in the community. (Lack of reporting and lack of staff willingness to take action even if someone reports further exacerbate this issue.)

http://money.cnn.com/2016/10/25/technology/developer-sexual-assault-virtual-reality/

This article just popped up in my news feed, and it's worth sharing here.

Of note:

Because video games are largely developed by men, harassment of the sort that Belamire experienced might not be top of mind in a game's design. Stanton said that's true of he and Schenker; while they'd given careful thought to the ways in which players might get in each others ways in the virtual world, they hadn't considered that players might be harassed.
"If VR has the power to have lasting positive impact because of that realism, the opposite has to be taken seriously as well," Stanton and Schenker wrote in their op-ed.
The benefits of virtual reality are frequently touted. At the WSJ Digital Conference in Laguna Beach on Tuesday, Sheryl Sandberg said Facebook thinks of it as "the ultimate empathy device."
Stanton agrees that "virtual reality is powerful."
"We do everything we possibly can to encourage that belief," he said. "But you can't have that kind of power and say that anytime something bad happens, it's not your responsibility."

While I'd say this is more dramatic in VR, it's also quite directly applicable to our hobby.

Some of the related articles note how this is not an issue until a female player suddenly appears -- and her in game appearance/avatar doesn't have to be any different from all the others (they're all identical) to suggest any sort of 'bait' or 'she must have been asking for it' logic, (which we see a lot of any time someone chooses a PB that doesn't look like ten miles of bad road in our hobby, and is about as classy as the 'but she was wearing lipstick, clearly she wanted it!' crap always is ).

Definitely worth a look, and definitely worth some thought.

@ThatGuyThere That is evil genius. Here's hoping you will get the chance.

@ThatGuyThere We have technically decided to cheat and do everything at one place, since we're not church people. (I'm the only not-Catholic in the family.)

The not-Catholic part will proooooobably be made all the more obvious when a friend of my husband's, who is a licensed minister, handles the vows. We're probably going to use the ceremony from Flash Gordon, since other friends of his have the actual minister's costume from the film, and we are, in the end, crazy bastards.

@ThatGuyThere What I'm saying is, people in this family (and sadly, the same is true for most of my friends and relatives) invite themselves to the wedding simply because they have heard about it and know when it is, they didn't get an invitation. People are left with the option of 'turn them away at the door at the ceremony' or 'shell out enormous amounts of unplanned for money and resources' if they invite themselves along to the reception as well.

Edit: To give you some idea... we're inviting one of the Italian cousins, noting specifically it's if he happens to be in town already at the time (which he often is, as his daughter goes to school in the US; he spends as much time here as there). He's already suggested that we pay for his plane ticket and one for a date, which we obviously declined, since that would be half of our entire budget (including for our clothes, all fees, all food, venue, etc.). People are INSANE with the level of imposition, and there's gotta be some limits in there somewhere. It just wouldn't be done to turn people away at the ceremony, though, with these folks -- that would be adding even more insult in their eyes.

@Bobotron It can be done with contain/etc. in the background size property as well with the css, but just... oh god. I can seriously hear the ghost of design profs past screeching in my head loudly enough I need a tylenol.

@ThatGuyThere Try being in a huge Catholic family for a while. They're big on the ceremony part. Everyone must be permitted to attend if they even know about it, or there will be hell to pay.

That doesn't mean I owe them a $75 dinner simply because they heard second-hand from Cousin Mario that there was a ceremony going down.

@Bobotron Wow, yeah... I have to expand my window to something HUGE on a 24 inch monitor to get the full basic text window there in as well...

Edit: (going cross-eyed now) ...and the grey text on a white and white background in a script font?! What in the actual fuck? That's downright illegible. My graphic design teachers would be going on a murder spree.

@Arkandel That would be the Reno reboot, I believe. Wishing them all the luck in the world, the person who took it over is IMHO good/sane/creative/fun/practical/sensible/reasonable/etc., which is very much win.

@ThatGuyThere A lot of people do, actually. I know a lot of folks who don't want to exclude anyone from the ceremony, so there's not really an invitation sent out for the ceremony at all -- it's just 'everybody in the family and friends group knows about it and is welcome to show up if they want' but they don't have the $$$$$ to pay for a ton of people to attend a reception, so the only actual invites that go out are for that. That shit's expensive. Average per guest in this area, for instance, is $75+ per guest, including children for a small, not terribly fancy sort of thing, unless you're doing something like a casual buffet at your house.

There's a reason I did the justice of the peace thing to handle the actual wedding with just my husband's mother and my parents there, and that we're saving up for an additional 2-3 years to have a small reception for just the closest of the close friends and relatives.

@Apu Consider this another vote of support from a long hair junkie. Mine would never, ever grow out past my shoulders until I flipped after a round of bad extensions (don't even ask, that's too long a story for another day) and just shaved them out in back and went full on skater cut for about three years, with the long top and the shaved back. (It was the nineties, come on, people!)

It worked like a charm.

I switched from dyeing it all a collection of reds/coppers/burgundies everyone under the sun oooooohed over for over a decade to olive/teal/purples with bright orange + burgundy underneath (same area that once was shaved, gimme a break, topknots look wonderfully trippy now) and got the same reaction from some people for about a week or so.

...now most of those same people have threatened to shave my head if I don't keep up with doing the green because apparently 'it suits you and somehow looks normal on you, how creepy is that'. So beware the people who decide the buzz looks better if you plan to grow it out!