Posts made by Thenomain

@ThatGuyThere

I will absolutely buy all of this. I used to be interested in taking Superhero Comic fans out with outright ridicule, but I never had any standing for it. It did become more of a curiosity about how one might describe the internal consistency that leads to the kind of Science Fiction statements like @Arkandel made, how someone would have known by now. I mean, he's right, but things like that are accepted in other situations. Therefore, there is an implied logic going on where some actions are hand waved and some are reviled.

If that logic is "because it makes a good story", I'd be happy with that. Captain America going against his very reason of being is not good story. It may be forgiven as the story is revealed, it may just be bad story out of the full context, but that's the kind of thing that interests me about Superhero Comics. Not the characters, but the story.

Some day I'd love to read a paper doing some research into why some inconsistencies in comics are okay, and others are not. This one I can understand, but for the reasons of how good the writing is to explain or even how good the writing is to not explain it.

I may have answered my own question, but when I try to read superhero comics the amount of inconsistency I see knocks me out of even trying, that there must be an explanation, however philosophical, about why, say, none of these people have aged in 60+ years is okay but other implausible ideas are not.

That is, a gigantic analysis of the fans of these comics.

@mietze

Lies. MGMT was always that bad no matter what kind of day it was.

@Ganymede said in RL Anger:

@Arkandel said in RL Anger:

Then they go on and on about how there's a wide world out there and it's the summer! Just go out and have some fun!

They don't say this where I live. Where I live, the news tells people not to go out due to allergens that are so bad that folks who have never been diagnosed with seasonal allergies collapse in unconscious, mucus-leaking heaps.

Fuck you, southwestern Ohio.

I have a fable that solves this, as fables are want to do:

Drugs. Drugs. Drugs. The end.

I don't like being posed at.

I like being posed with.

I like back and forth, walk and talk, witty repartee.

I like interrupting and being interrupted, backhanded remarks behind the conversation, the sense that anyone can jump in and change the direction of the scene by force of character will.

I like it organic.

It's rare I get this feeling when someone is composing their personalized paragraph in a larger book. I'm utterly kicked out of the mood when I have to wait ten minutes for the purple prose. I hate waiting knowing that I have absolutely no chance to make it more natural.

I have played against people who are so good at this that their every pose looks like an invitation to a wider story and I find myself writing paragraphs. People like @Emmahsue. They are the exceptions that prove the rule for me.

My poses tend to be short, but I try to make sure that they are packed, efficient, and evocative.

"You know you are done not when there is nothing more to add, but when there's nothing more to take away."

@Whirlwind

#1) Hey, Whirlwind.

#2) If it's on the Directory, the location can be called? Eh, it seems like a cheap solution, but an easy one.

@SkinnyThicket said in Core Memories Instead of BG?:

So if I had to refine it, if that did prove to be the case, I'd only reward Defining Moments with chargen points after certain chunks of time.
So player A who knows their character intimately writes all their DMs, then receives chargen points periodically. But player B who didn't write any is notified periodically that they can receive chargen points by writing a DM.

So some kind of point-tally system based on the character's experiences.

I nominate the name of this kind of tally system "Experience Points".

Perhaps you could give some of these "Experience Points" if they act in accordance to their Defining Moments.

And now, the sly eyeshift.

>.>

<.<

(All in good fun.)

@Arkandel said in How does a Mu* become successful?:

Just because you value things differently it doesn't mean you are right - you realize that, right?

After two posts of you saying what's best and how things must be, it's now that you decide to realize this?

I still don't think you know what you're talking about. You sure don't express it, and as long as you post with finality and without context of your own approach then yeah, I'm going to poke holes in it. There are no universal truths, here, so yes, there are plenty of reasons to do pre-RP chargen checking.

I suggest reading

Oh snap! The cliche "if you only read" comeback. Well consider me truly schooled and humbled.

I'm not attacking, well wasn't attacking, I was calling into question your solutions as you present them, because you are dogged with them to the point of blindness. This suggestion in particular is dangerous. Sure you can give it a go, but it has a lot of problems with it.

Maybe I'd be less snippy if it wasn't presented as "just do it this way". No support. No insight. Just thought. It's a dangerous thought, and I've backed up my reasoning. My "what the fuck" is just that; what the fuck.

Because, dude, what the fuck are you smoking? You didn't seem to think it through, and you're smarter than that! Don't lead people astray without being sure, please!

Okay, done now.

(Grumpy cat coder is grumpy about code.)

Edit: The word that's been plaguing me this entire post I just remembered is "truism". I will pick at the heart of any truism to attempt to see if anything is useful in there, because few truisms are useful, and I don't trust people who speak in them.

@ThatGuyThere

And this is why I disagree with @Groth: There is absolutely such a thing as an arbitrary system.

My point, tho, was that having a system that doesn't work is hardly better than having no system at all, and that you must accept the conditions of a game that you play or know your limit when attempting to change it.

Also, flies, honey, vinegar.

@Arkandel

CG checks before role play serves a great number of purposes. System validation. Theme enforcement. Uh, other things, but that's two more reasons than you gave for dismissing pre-RP checking. They can be loosened, certainly, but to say there is no reason that it can't be dropped is one more reason I think you don't know what you're talking about.

We should be constantly looking for ways to lower the barrier to entry, but it helps to have logic behind it. Mushes have run on 400 people logged in at once; what on earth do you mean it doesn't scale? I've created a chargen that does all the system checking for you; what do mean it doesn't scale?

Bah.

@faraday

Yeah, but FS3 also isn't plug and play. Some assembly required to fit the game it's installed for, unless that game is Space Pew Pew Cadets. (I honestly don't know what other implementations have been coded besides BSG.)

I'd say more your Faraday Code is what I'd compare what I'd want to do. Or the sandbox pre-loaded database that Mux has, and Ambryl's Mush counterpart, which is awesome by the way.

And then, a one stop add-on for WoDness. Slight coder required. I and @Cobaltasaurus and occasionally @Sammi invlooving ourselves in game setup. You got no small praise helping out another server, recently. That's what we can do for now. So ... Go us.

@faraday said in How does a Mu* become successful?:

Sure you can say "screw the dinosaurs" and build something completely new and different, like Storium. But then it's not really a MUSH any more. And you're potentially losing out on your most enthusiastic and experienced players. It's a big gamble.

Starting any new game is a big gamble. My advice is always: Be excited about it, and have others who are excited about it.

I mean, I don't use Evennia, yet I'm excited about it, in part to hope to get people using it.

Sorry that this isn't Ares, but I don't know enough about it to be excited about it. I mean, I think we all just want to tell stories, and the lower the barrier the more likely we are to jump into it. I've worked with your code for long enough to know that you get what it is that people want and like, and can code both directions (Penn and Mux) at once.

And really, the Penn channel system isn't so bad that it would stop me from playing somewhere, but I didn't hold back on the initial Mux mail system before it was re-created either. And people complained at me when I kept asking the same questions over and over about it on channel.

It's about creating momentum.

(edit to note: This is why I'm trying to get my code together so that people can just go, bloop, new game. Maybe. Some. Year.)

@SkinnyThicket

I can't tell you how many times people have pitched to me to make a template room system, something a level above temprooms (my favorite code contribution to this hobby). If people use it enough, allow it to become a permanent addition to the grid. Allow people to tweak the description. Remember the bar settings that were set the first time someone put a bar there, for the consistency. A++. Would Assimilate This Code.

Another thought:

If you don't have all your Defining Moments set, don't give full chargen points. As you define those moments, allow chargen points to be spent concerning that defining moment.

Incidentally, @Taika, have you ever read the Fate Core rules? This is its basis of character generation. I'm presenting their answer for creating character Aspects on the fly.

@Kestrel

You really, really need to look into the Evennia group. @Griatch, I summon thee.

And of course it wasn't applied well enough, but let's start by learning from our mistakes, not just re-inventing the wheel. But to do that, you need to know the history, or at least someone brave enough to say, "We did that" before you eveen have a chance. It's not that "fill in blank" is a bad idea, tho I'm inwardly eye rolling at the ideas you're putting forward. It's that you now have to hit the bar where others have failed. This is definitely more encouragement than criticism.

I'm looking forward to seeing a plan.

@Kestrel

We're talking about the same thing. In Mushes, knowing who is a vampire and where they are means mobbing them with your Werewolf friends. Talking openly about secrets because they are in another language means that people don't know about your sordid past if you don't want them. No, we're talking about the same kinds of secrets. I'm talking about it from a code aspect because to me, code is probably what people are going to lean on to have systems for having and discovering secrets. (Spy code. Invisibility code. Eavesdropping systems.)

I don't think that Mush is otherwise adverse or antagonistic towards the "secretly a serial killer" kind of secret, but to keep it a secret from other players is a trick. Keeping it a secret from other characters is easy. Doing the latter without worrying about the former is one of culture, trust, and responsibility.

Not code.

I repeat this to everyone reading this thread: NOT CODE.

Never in my twenty-some odd years in this hobby have I ever seen code stop people from abusing information, or complaining about unfairness.

A note to Qwest: I recall that I wanted to say I agree with you on something, but not what. You sounded like you were saying MUDs were better than Mushes because "at least MUDs aren't unfair". Anyhow, truce.

@ThatOneDude

I admit, every time I staff I say it's the last time I'll play a Mush. Then I realize it's where the people I know are, and I enjoy solving challenges.

Yeah, I said I'd never code again and there was Eldritch. And then BitN. And now something else. And Mage. And dammit, coming up with easier UX and better methods and hopefully an easy installer is fun.

But seriously, this is the last time.

Sure, Theno. Sure.

@Ide

Alright, I see what you're saying. As she's stating it, tho, we've applied all of that, almost all of that on the same games, and I wouldn't have called it a success. The fact that we have regressed to the older, shittier UX of Mu*, whether Mud or Mush, is my evidence of that.

Why did we? No real answer. Momentum, probably. Is Storium still going? Is it popular? Is it a success? Maybe if it wasn't behind a paywall I'd try it out long-term and see.

I really do see Evennia as the only modern attempt in the current culture. I've looked around for other offerings, but as an open-writer's play-space, there aren't many.

For a MUD, I understand Icewind Dale (sorry, brain dead, I can't remember the isomorphic game with tons of editing tools) was pretty damn popular with user-created modules.

@Pandora said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@Thenomain said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

@Pandora said in Cultural differences between MUDs and MUSHes:

Also - if you need a doctor and one isn't around, you can absolutely go to the hospital and NPC doctors are coded to give you the gift of healing - but you're at the mercy of the person that wounded you actually getting you there on time, and no amount of OOCly paging/calling/seeking someone to save you via OOC means is going to help - you've got to navigate through the streets to the hospital and hope you don't bleed out along the way. (You have 1 rl hour).

Why 1 hour? This seems like an arbitrary number to me, and you were arguing against abitrariness for creating hard feelings. Even set rules can cause hard feelings. "I had only 2 points over lethal, while Bob had 10, and he had the same hour to get help as I did, that's unfair!"

And this is what gets me about Muds: All these systems are, in the end, arbitrary. Like all games, you pick the game you like and you play it, knowing that it's arbitrary. Saying "at least Muds do it differently" is the concession that different games are different. It's not a solution, and the way your particular Mud habit goes isn't better in general. It's better for you, absolutely, but I don't see this as being a solution to any problem than "one of a thousand ways to do it".

So no, I don't think your answer is a great solution. I think it's a concession to the people who like things that way, as opposed to people who like things, well, the Mush way.

2 points over...10 points over... whether your arm is severed at the elbow or shoulder - you're bleeding.

You are reframing the argument until you're right. And you would be right that, in a system where those two instances are being compared, then they probably have about the same time to live. But what about losing your hand vs. off at the shoulder? What if I knew just enough to make a tourniquet? The system doesn't care. The system isn't coded for it. Yet I bet the person with lots of pressure on the wrist-stump has a lot more time to live than the person with the shoulder-stump. If the system can't apply basic first-aid knowledge to it, can't I also call it unfair?

It certainly is equally (un-)fair to everyone, but man is that not going to matter to some people.

As @Lothorio says, and as I said, knowing the system is one of the reasons to play or not play a game. I'm not saying that your system is wrong, I'm saying that it's no better than an RPG-based game. It's just different. Therefore, it isn't a solution.

@Kestrel

I was mentioning you so that you, and others, would know what a Moo is. Also, you lamented the lack of secrets in Mushes in the other thread. As as I was going down the history of the Modern Mush, it felt relevant.

Why try to improve on something so unwieldy when its audience and function could be fulfilled by something better and more user-friendly?

So, my recent Mud experience was me asking why some exits were hilited and some weren't. "The hilites were for certain rooms at the other end," I was told. I replied asking why I, in the information/newbie nexus, couldn't go through them. "Because they're not for you," I was told, "they're for experts." Well then they shouldn't be hilited, I said, because that's confusing. At that point I started getting talk-back like I was a problem player, tho what I was doing was engaging in a little UX discussion to make it more user-friendly.

So the answer is: Preach it, Sister. If only Muds were more user-friendly, I might play more of them.

Wait, are you talking about the code? Oh, momentum mostly. Evennia is the closest thing to a Mush replacement we have these days, and even it has a development barrier too high to just pick it up and run with it.

I think 'a successful MU*' would be a MU* that isn't a MU* at all.

Which is funny, because most of what you said you would do or that your friend would do has been done before. Play By Post integration: RP over a Jobs system (mostly complained about). Dynamic grid: Part of what we gave up years ago (still used in spaceship games). Web-Interface: Evennia and any Muck coded by Nuku. Auto-logging features: Every client ever. Player/Character profiles: Wiki and, in-game, finger.

We're already there.

Mind you, I have to ask: How would these things make it successful? What is 'successful' here?