Posts made by surreality

@faraday I may be misremembering, then, since I am cringey on wikidot. It's like moonspeak to me.

@faraday Gotcha, I think when last I checked it was possible. Good to know, though!

@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.

@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.

@gryphter Pretty much, yeah. Any benefits from things like this were all designed to go to a 'player pool' that the player could then distribute among their characters, start a new character with some extra points, etc.

In part, that setup was to help manage the dino vs. newbie gap, since it'd be possible to concentrate that (within reasonable limits) on a single character to catch up more quickly with the 'big guns' and so on.

@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.

@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.)

@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.

@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.

One thing I have considered isn't so much a 'game runner/staff' thing, but having a listing of people willing to do X work for others (free or for cash or whatever), but that's things like 'set up a build with descs and details' or 'do some elaborate photoshopping/do character sketches' and similar. Granted, that's as easy as 'set up signup sheet on the wiki where people wanting to freely offer or advertise what they're able to do on what terms', ultimately.

mietze nails it, really. There are a lot of issues with it for this particular hobby.

I've actually done all three of those examples, and done quite well at each of them -- but I did pick them over M* every time, as I was M*ing through all of them. (There are current rather than former ones, too, but nnngh that's talking about work and nah.)

We deal with some horribly entitled people at art shows. One of those jobs in particular had a storm of entitled craziness in it. None of them hold a candle, sadly, to a lot of what I've seen in M*. I was able to weather things better than I might have otherwise in the especially troublesome one based on the M* experience, believe it or not.

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.

@Ganymede Gah, I need to pass that info along to the husband. He uses that one.

Our awkward conversation:

"Honey, does that product name sound, uhm... "
"I swear, it's just a protein shake."
"It sounds like it has-"
"Stop!" Sigh. "...I know, I know."

@mietze See, I only know of the one and now I'm deathly curious about the other two.

@Auspice After he changed the name and started off with something vaguely lucid, he had good camouflage, I gather.

@Wizz What's funnier is that he asks that most of the times he does a drive-by, which makes it more of a tell than the dodge he doubtless thinks it is.

Pretty sure it's a desperate ploy to hear how much of an impact he's had on our lives, on some deep, tragic level that it'd take a proper shrink to unpack.

@Duke-Nukem

@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.)

@faraday ...and the percentage of any one of these things in any given game is going to vary wildly, too, depending on the creator's intended focus.