Best posts made by Tempest

@Pandora said in Intersectional MU* Community:

but are still raging assholes? Is it still a safe space if people are snide, two-faced, or judgmental, but not based on any factors other than the other person's personality?

Strange question, considering that all those factors seem to apply to the community's creator, judging from the last thread.

Odds are this community won't do much of anything and won't be any 'better' than any other random group of people on the internet. They're not going to go purge the Azazello's or Rex's of the world who are actual problems.

They're going to sit around and knitting circle about somebody who took a position they wanted on some game or is TSing the person they want to fuck or w/e, and probably harass that person.

I am never going to understand these sorts of posts, and I am going to explain why, in what I feel is a constructive fashion.

One, you shouldn't even be posting about the Fallout game. You're wasting people's initial excitement. Very few people are going to want to play the game by the time you actually finish it, because you posted about it months before it was ready and everybody already went through the "omg I would love to do <insert concept> in a Fallout setting!" and burned out all the energy they had to give a fuck about it. Or in the time between then and now, they will have found a new 'MU home'. You'll get a few people sure, but by the time you actually post an address for the game, the 'sort of, maybe' people will be past caring.

And then posting this sort of "haha I randomly thought about this and thought it'd be fun, what do you guys think, oh but we're totally focused on the other thing still" makes the whole thing seem super flaky, and tbh, makes it seem like not only is this Genosha thing never going to happen, but the Fallout thing probably won't happen either.

PSA (to everybody around here, not just Riz) : Stop posting about how "you're thinking about making an XYZ game" or saying you're working on a thing MONTHS AND MONTHS before it's ever going to happen. You're completely killing any "opening excitement" your game could have had. People stop giving a shit after a few months of seeing you post about your stuff.

If you want to make a game just go MAKE IT. You will be far more successful if, when you pitch it to people, they can actually log in somewhere and start exploring the wiki/game to maintain their interest. If they can't do any of that, they will move on.

The obvious exception here is The Reach-esque stuff that is just a giant "do whatever you fucking want, Shang-lite", those are always going to have players, no matter what. But these smaller, 'niche' games, you are shooting yourselves in the foot.

@ghost said in FCs on Comic MUs:

I've chimed off on this before (re: FC sexuality), but I don't think the concern is so much on the sexuality of the character. I think it has more to do with how the character will behave under the control of the player.

I have no issues with a female Captain America or even a gay Captain America (there might be a compelling story to tell in Steve Rogers arriving in the modern age and realizing that he can be gay in 2017 with a certain amount of respect that wasn't prevalent in 1941).

I like to think that players would approach those gender/sexuality issues as a means of compelling story.

HOW and EVER...

I think the real concern people have is in a Captain America transported to 2017 as FUCK EVERYTHING THAT MOVES BONDAGE SEX SWING NEVER INVOLVES IN ANY STORY AND SENDS EVERYONE DICK PICS Captain America, thus really putting aside any meaningful role playing with the character concept in favor of using the character as a sandbox Shang Alt.

We'd seen mentions recently of gay fish Daken uncomfortably hitting on people IC and OOC, and mentions of Sex Magic Sorcerer Supreme Dr Strange.

So, in summary, I think the concern is less on gender/sexuality of the FC and more on whether or not they'll be used like a Harvey Weinstein extension of the player's whims, thus becoming more of a distraction than a contribution.

Pretty much all of this. Except I will say I'm not really okay with gender-swapping FCs. Making Captain America a woman is an entirely different beast (on an entirely different planet) than making Cap gay or bi.

As for sexuality, though, the thing is, if I'm not involved, I really shouldn't have any reason to know your Captain America is gay.

Yeah, there's lot of 'interpretations of characters' and stuff, but....IDK, I'm pretty sure I've never seen "super flirty and promiscuous Captain America who is totally open about sexuality".

The other thing is it's very common for people on Hero games to shack up with one person, which again, both makes it obvious and odds are you're not living up to your 'responsibilities' as a high profile FC.

It's not hard to play "gay Psylocke" or something and have it fly mostly under the radar if you have any fucking concept of discretion. But if you're taking trips to Lady Mastermind's Lesbian BDSM Mansion in England and staying there for months IC with other female PCs, and actually broadcasting the fact...uh...yeah, you might get people talking shit about you. (Details here are off, it's been a while, but that's vaguely based on a true story.)

tl;dr Nobody (except dumbasses) cares if you play a 'good' Wolverine/whatever who just happens to be gay, while staying active in your sphere/etc. When "I am playing gay so-and-so" becomes the focal point of what YOU as a player are doing, rather than just "I am playing so-and-so", is the problem.

ETA : This is just a general huge personal peeve for me. People have no concept of 'time and place' for when to do this stuff, and/or they are so desperate for attention, they'll put this stuff in the forefront when it has no real purpose. (Cough. Crossing to WoD for a second. Dragging ghouls to Elysium or into COURT on a leash and having them call you 'Daddy' in public scenes.)

Like goddamn, even if Dr. Strange and Rogue were doing SEX MAGIC shit.

WHY THE FUCK DOES LITERALLY ANYBODY ELSE ON THE GAME KNOW ABOUT IT?

There's a big difference between stuff like "oh that Spider-Woman is dating Psylocke" and "that Spider-Woman and Psylocke constantly make every scene about their relationship and talk casually about BDSM shit ICly and on channels and have invited 27 different other female PCs to BDSM Land with almost no cause".

I mean...isn’t the obvious answer to build some sort of relationship with your vassals and be a good leader that inspires them to want to remain in your fealty?

If you’re not willing to put in that work, why do you perpetually deserve to benefit from the income that @wahoo appears to be worried about. “Because staff said my house is higher than your house”?

I will repeat that I found it strange the last AoP drew no gripes, when there were literally like...Houses with 2 PCs in them getting elevated.

Houses lost income then, too. Just...not a great house, so it was okay?

If we want no personal insults outside of the Hog Pit, that needs to be clear cut and dry, IMO. Otherwise it's left up to some ambiguous standard of "what crosses the line into being /too/ insulting". There's a lot of "you're an idiot" "you're pathetic", etc, that seems to get by without issue until somebody blows up in response. (This will probably be hard for people like me to get used to, but if we're going to do it, it needs to be a clear line.)

And I apologize for my comments here outside of the hog pit. I was agitated.

@apos said in Game Design: Avoiding Min-Maxing:

@sockmonkey Deliberate obfuscation of numbers has some strong and weak points, and it is something that's existed for a long time. I've played games that didn't use any numbers at all, hiding them entirely to staff side while there was still automated systems.

Dedicated min-maxer types try REALLY hard to reverse engineer the formulas and numbers. Really, really hard. I was one of those people, and as a much younger person I ran a whole lot of tests on MMOs the embraced some numeric obfuscation to reverse engineer the numbers on mechanics so I could create optimally efficient paths. Just having a character spamming abilities thousands of times in a row, recording results and so on. Figuring that stuff out was basically a mini game.

Now in some games, like RPI type games that forbid ooc discussion, that is partly because they want to ban that behavior, of people talking oocly about mechanics in a way that would let them game the system. What happens then, of course, is that people that really, really know how to abuse systems become at a privileged position in the game with them and their friends. If the game has any competitive aspects at all they become extremely dominant, since new players don't have any way to access that knowledge with performing the same kind of exhaustive tests themselves.

So imo the way to stop min-maxing is to make strong, effective ways of designing characters be very, very, very intuitive and what someone would do anyways.

I agree with most of this.

And will go so far as to flat out say obfuscation does not work.

People will figure it out and it just leads to a massive gap between the people who have figured stuff out or have friends who figured it out and people who are less interested in that stuff or are new.

I've done the RPI circuit, I've even played MUDs with full eq systems/etc that didn't have numbers. Weapons/armor had things like "minor" or "greater" enchantments, skills went from 'not learned' to 'mastered', attributes were all words too. People figure it out and it drastically widens the gap between the competitive players and the filthy casuals.

You can have all the "don't talk about it" rules you want, people will just do it in discord (or IM services of yesteryear).

Edits :

For the record, I personally don't even mind obfuscation. I spent years playing games that did it.

But, basically, obfuscating the numbers just increases the problem of min-maxing, because some people will still know how to do it, and everybody else will have a harder time understanding things like "how big of a difference really is there between Good strength and Great strength?"

TL;DR Obfuscating does reduce min-maxing OVERALL, but it doesn't remove it, and in exchange for a reduced 'amount' of min-maxing, gives an insurmountable advantage to the people who bother figuring it out.

I say this as somebody from PK/RP corpse-looting MUDs who has played games where 1 max level char who 'understands the game' can kill and corpse loot groups of 6+ max level/skill-maxed "perma noobs" who are running around in what seems like End-Game eq, but doesn't really stack up when you dig into the numbers.

Because the people they want on the game are already on the game.

The "opening" was just to let in some randos, so it feels more like a real game.

Having just you and your friends on the who list makes it feel like a sandbox and diminishes things.

@kanye-qwest this is a moo

People who app Deadpool definitely get way too fucking into being Deadpool.

It sounds like a weird thing to complain about, but, we can all agree Deadpool as a character is pretty obnoxious. It works in comics, because he's doing at the expense of imaginary characters and you're just reading it for amusement.

On MU, it's being done at your expense.

Like even Deadpool apps tend to be eyeroll inducing because they feel compelled to go "HAHA LOOK AT THIS, I'D BE SUCH A GREAT DEADPOOL!" in the app writeup. It's never just a paragraph of "deadpool has healing, he can heal from bullet wounds in a matter of seconds".

It's some 4th wall breaking ministory written from 1st Person, rather than a description of the power, and with jokes/etc thrown in.

I am sorry, but man. Asking people on MU for like..an actual "date"?

That sounds creepy. IDK. Maybe I'm just not caught up to the way things are nowadays.

@noodle-mcdoodle said in Spirit Lake: An Original Modern Fantasy Game:

This is a small plot-driven game and always has been; it's never been sold as anything else, and the intended playerbase for that kind of game is never going to be huge.

I mean if they want to close the game to new players, that's entirely up to them, and they're welcome to do it.

Saying stuff like this just...feels pretty stupid, though?

"This is a small plot-driven game and always has been!!!!"

Nobody knew this existed until 3 days ago, and it wasn't open until today. Unless you were staff or one of their close friends.

Again, that's perfectly fine. People want to play with their friends, not randos.

But...let's not dress it up for no reason.

@Tinuviel said in SerenityMUSH - Discussion:

@Thenomain Yeah, all the others are the werewolves trying to bang her. Obviously.

In my experience, it's usually the other way around. Ten 5'0" or shorter wolfblooded with 'hourglass figures' and 'long legs' trying to bang the same two (very poorly played) werewolf guys with PBs from Sons of Anarchy.

This all just reeks of absolute nonsense.

@Too-Old-For-This already largely hit the nail on the head and I notice it's the one person in the thread that OP decided to not reply to.

There is generally zero accountability for staff, because the people with "power over them" (if there even is anybody above them) are generally literally their OOC bff's and often literally their boyfriend or girlfriend that lives with them IRL.

So the people with power over shitty staff are biased towards them and have serious RL incentive to just ignore shitty behavior from them because calling them out on it doesn't just result in MU drama, it results in actual face-to-face, in person drama.

On top of that, you then have the shills who are just players and will loudly, rabidly froth at the mouth in defense of their Favorite Staffer Of The Moment in hopes of currying their favor and getting actual in-game benefits as a result of it.

@Sparks is literally bandying about the same old tired ass "if you don't like it leave" nonsense, as the right way to handle things, rather than to have any sort of accountability or expectation that staff should be open and honest about things and not be shitty, biased fucks.

Here are some absolutes for you.

Staff on MUs are human.

Staff on MUs are MU players.

MU players suck dick. Yes, you reading this right now, you are a terrible person and a complete shithead to just about everybody in the hobby outside of your circle of friends, because you're a selfish fuck with no self-awareness.

No, you are not this selfless saint of storytelling you want to portray yourself as. Because nobody is.

My problem, and IMO, the core toxicity destroying the hobby, isn't that MU staff can be shitty or that players are entitled (again, Staff are Players, so they feel entitled too. Oh, I'm staff now, I do so much for the game, that means I get to keep playing my PC but now she's a turbo-charged Mega NPC that is an IC Superhero of the World. But don't worry, I only do it to dispense story to other people :D). It's how dishonest, tribal, and defensive they (and everybody else in this hobby) are, and how incapable of taking a look in the mirror and holding themselves and their friends accountable they are., nevermind accepting outside criticism.

@lordbelh said in PC antagonism done right:

some of whom had thousand + beats.

Games need XP caps. Seriously.

I don't care how much people want to cry about 'omg character growth'.

There is a level of XP these games were not meant to ever be played at, and if you just let people accrue XP on characters for RL years+, they will get to that level unless there's a flat, hard cap, even if you think your xp rate is slow.

A lot of this relates to a pretty simple and yet core reason for why MUs are deteriorating, IMO.

We almost never tell people 'NO'. Staff is afraid of the argument or afraid of looking like the 'bad guy' or afraid of the person running here to say how horrible they are, etc.

Not to put the entire blame on the people who run things either. Players are awful at accepting being told no. They'll argue incessantly or find some conspiracy theory for why they were told no.

All the 'big' games are places with almost 0 oversight where players are free to do whatever they want.

(Admittedly, we have all seen genuinely biased staff 100x who play X thing themselves but won't let other people, and whatever other related instances.)

Just imagine how much simpler and potentially 'better' this hobby would be if we got better at telling people 'no'.

I don't care if you got approved with some retarded shit on your sheet. Staff shouldn't be afraid to go 'no, you can not drop a truck on Jane while sitting in your apartment'. And players should grow the fuck up and realize that's a pretty reasonable stance.

"No automotive/mechanics wanted? Oh, I know, I'll make a guy that runs a MOTORCYCLE shop!"

Is effectively equivalent to "No cops/law enforcement wanted? Okay, I'll make an FBI agent!"