Posts made by Wolfs

Seems we all guest wrong about the reason behind this one.

If guest logins are disabled, people can probably just create a general login with a name of their choosing and change it later if they need to. If a character goes unfinished, it can just be nuked (or sit there, if staff doesn't clean that up).

Okay, good. I haven't had the chance to test it yet this week. The 'recording in the background' thing may be one of my favorite PS4 features.

So it isn't automatically grabbing the last X amount of minutes now? That kind of sucks. Sometimes you don't know when something neat is going to happen and if it isn't recording in the background you're SOL unless you've started it yourself, from the way that sounds.

I guess I can see that POV, and if people were just using downvotes to sort of anonymously troll then that becomes a problem. It'd cut down on some spam just to see who's upvoting instead of a bunch of +1s all over the place quoting the same thing over and over (posting "me toos" like some braindead AOLer).

Maybe the same thing should be done for upvotes. Are either really needed, when you think about it?

Yeah, one of the Atari systems, probably also the 2600, was my first real console. We even had a Pong thing. Then it was the NES (which I still have, which still works) and the rest is history.

When I PC game, I use an XB1 controller I bought specifically to plug in for it. I own a PS4, and that controller obviously works just fine for their remote sharing function.

I know mouse/keyboard gives you better control, especially when aiming with the mouse, but I've just never been very good at using the keyboard for movement and actions. I'll take the controller when I have the choice.

A few years ago I bought two years worth of PS+ for a total of $60 on Amazon during (I think) a Cyber Monday deal. I haven't seen any offers as good as that since. I'm still good through the middle of 2017 thanks also to some promo time but someone tipped me off to cdkeys for discounts.

Lately they've got a year of PS+ going for about $43 and while that's not a big discount from $50, it's decent and when you consider it's about to be $60 it starts to look a lot better. For all I know, cdkeys might sell the updated ones for $53 or so, but with the price about to jump I figured this was the right time to add two more years.

Once I verified my purchase, I downloaded two codes, plugged them into my account (works online, too) and now I'm set through mid 2019. The link for the US PS+ stuff is here if anyone's interested. They were showing as out when I checked last week, but I signed up for alerts and got an e-mail when they were available again, and they still show available now.

Looks like one of the early moons I found is filled with large gold deposits and I wasn't bothered by any sentinels while I farmed over 200k units last night. I think I've found a good early mining venture to get those units up.

A friend tipped me off to those grenades you can unlock for your multi-tool, and carving out a little diagonal tunnel can be very nice for recovering from the elements in a pinch instead of having to run back to your ship or find an actual cave system every time.

I'm kind of slowly working my way through the early stages of exploring, keeping the objectives they throw out there in mind. I haven't had the chance to play it much since my pre-order arrived on Thursday and I worked long days Thursday through Saturday, but I've found it to be pretty interesting so far. I like that they're talking about doing regular updates and staying away from paid DLC add-ons.

If you all could see how HARD I rolled my eyes when I read about the petition to have Rotten Tomatoes shut down simply because some fans didn't like that there are a bunch of negative Suicide Squad reviews and they thought RT was responsible for them or something.

@Lotherio

The main thing I was getting at is that in most cases, it's more complicated than whittling it down to one thing every time. I know there were a lot of words, but I thought it important to set up and describe my own POV related to what others have been talking about.

It's really got very little to do with wanting to run a specific type of thing or what direction that thing goes in, though.

The other part of it is, well, sometimes a person just no longer has that drive, whether it's just them or a combination of factors that end up creating the situation. I don't think anyone is advocating staff being the only ones responsible for RP.

The hierarchy thing in relation to a MU* is something that I think is necessary, though. Some people are fit to staff. Some aren't. Some are fit to run teams. Some aren't. Some are just fit to flesh a place out, take what RP they can get, come up with what they can to help, and have fun overall.

I don't believe you can have a truly successful place without all three of those "groups" working in tandem with each other, though it often ends up that staffers are the ones trying to handle the groups as well. I guess you can't blame them if it's a matter of trust, but that can also lead to the issues of favoritism and cliquishness so many people complain about.

Anyway, consider it a machine if that fits better. Once any of those parts start to falter, it makes it a lot harder for the whole to work as well. At the same time, everyone eventually hits the point where it's time to move on from a place whether it's due to a shift in activity or some other reason. Communication, or the lack of it, is often as big a reason as any.

I think there's a difference to make between "hindering player initiative" and "keeping in the know about what's going on."

If you want to run a one-off thing that has no real repercussions and doesn't affect anything in a major way, people should generally be able to do that to their heart's content. If it involves an NPC villain and a game has a pool people can pick and choose from, once it's over there should be something that goes back to staff in order to summarize what happened so staff can make any updates they need to when it comes to what that villain's done.

If it's an actual plot that involves something bigger, I see no reason why staff shouldn't have a process in place to review and approve or disapprove of those. A plot is more than a one-off, and even if it only affects one or two people, it's important for staff to know what's going on. They might have feedback to give. They may have something to point out that the players weren't thinking or aware of.

A player-run plot is not meant to be a spur-of-the-moment thing when it comes to RP. It requires planning and setup, and in most cases part of that should probably involve running it by pertinent staff. It's also more likely to lead to putting together something that's well-defined from beginning to end instead of "Hey! I just had an idea! Let's go do it!"

On the other hand, if staff has a policy like that in place, they need to hold up their end of the bargain by being quick and efficient with whatever their response is. If it's something you want to start in a few days and there's a reason it can't wait, staff shouldn't be sitting on it for two weeks before giving any feedback. Of course, there may be reasons for staff to have a policy that includes not trying to force a quick yes or no out of them.

This all ties into staff actually having a say when it comes to certain things that happen on the game they've built and run. Playing a character there usually doesn't just give you carte blanche to do whatever you want, whenever you want, particularly if it's a big thing.

This is a tough one because there are often a wide variety of other factors going on beyond JUST "staff" or "player" things that can contribute to a loss of fun, less activity, and onset of boredom. I've been going through some of those things myself.

The first thing I should note is I've been doing this stuff for a long, long, LONG time, much longer than I ever thought I would. If we all stopped for a moment to look at ourselves, I think the majority of us would say something like that.

In fact, I've done so much RP over the years that, to be honest, I've let it take up too much of my time when I could have and should have been doing more productive things with my life. That's not a knock on the RP itself or any of the people I've played with, but the word "addiction" would be a fitting one.

On numerous places, most of them superhero-based, I've gone through the pattern of being very active, to seeing that activity wane, to me twiddling my thumbs feeling like I'm just spinning the tires fruitlessly, to finally giving up and moving on.

Some of that is on me. I love to brainstorm with others and find fun things to do, but outside those idea sessions I'm not very proactive. I've hit a point where I have little interest hanging out in an OOC room or on a Public channel, because both of those tend to be overwhelmed by people in need of attention to the point one or the other (sometimes both) often turns into a place full of endless spam I have to escape from. It's easier for me to stay in a quiet place and try to figure out things with others on a more one-on-one basis. The downside of this is, yeah, I might miss out on some things.

Another problem is my ability (or inability) to focus on things sometimes. I used to be able to handle three or four RPs at once, though I'm pretty sure the quality of my poses suffered for it. These days, I try never to do more than two at once and usually one is my limit. Part of this is because I put more into my poses than I used to. Another reason is sometimes I have other things going on and if I'm stretching myself too thin...well, let's just say I don't want to be that person who only poses once every 30 minutes and it ends up being two lines.

On top of that, it can be tougher for me to keep up with everything in a large group RP like a fight scene where a ton of stuff is happening. I end up having to focus mainly on the stuff that's only directly related to me, and if the rest isn't moving too quickly I can at least skim it to have a general idea of what else is going on. This is why most of what I've done these days is social, slice-of-life stuff, or minor action with no more than two or three other people. It's usually the limit of what I can handle.

Enter the problem: a hierarchy that breaks down. There's only so much staff can do, and there's only so much one player can do. Ideally, I think people benefit most from a setup that goes something like this:

• RP Staff takes care of the big picture and pitches in for teams/players when needed or able. This is on the macro level.
• A team/faction/group head (or 2+ depending on size and scope) needs to be there and active to keep things running more on the mid to micro level.
• The average player benefits from both of the above, but there is still a responsibility to pitch in with things from time to time along with participating in what's offered by those above. Players can't expect everything to be handed to them. If they want to focus on something related to them as part of character building, they have to say so. They do need to have their own ideas and seek out RP on their own whether it's with a teammate or a "stranger."

Take that and add the following problems to the mix:

• If RP Staff doesn't provide over-arching plots or a general direction, the rest eventually breaks down.
• If group heads don't communicate with RP Staff and they don't give their groups things to focus on, the rest eventually breaks down.
• If players don't communicate with anyone, don't offer any input/ideas, and don't take part in what RP Staff or group heads offer them, the rest eventually breaks down.

This inevitably leads to one thing no matter the path it all takes to get there: multiple people growing frustrated, doing less, and eventually leaving the place.

This is what's happened to me and the characters I have on the last place I was remotely active on. I did a slow build to get them involved with groups after bringing them into play in more of an "on their own" state, and while some things went on that helped them settle in, various things started happening that caused RP to grow stagnant.

In one case, it's time zones not working out well with the RP Staff and/or players who run things. By the time some RP could be set up with someone I enjoy RPing and discussing ideas with, usually it's getting to be bedtime for me. I don't mind starting something, having to pause, and pick it up a couple times over the course of the week so we can finish it, but it's really hard to start something when I'm going to bed in half an hour and there's no guarantee we can keep it moving over the next few days. After all, I'm not the only one this person RPs with, but for various reasons he started to be almost the only one I RPed with. Part of that is my fault.

In another case, a group was set up without clearly defined leadership, at least on an OOC level, and the IC leader didn't do a whole lot so there was never really any progress made on doing team things. Now the majority of the players in the group either left or don't do anything, so that's a dead project. I tried to work myself into more of an active status with some of them, but when those who are left are only around intermittently, nothing really happens.

There's been another player on the place (I think he finally left to set up and run his own game, so more power to him) who tends to cycle through various characters, but the problem with that is he's often started to set things up and form groups to run RP with, only to leave them in the lurch when he inevitably bails for another "project." If it became an activity thing in any way, I don't know how much of that was him vs. the players. Then, if nobody else is proactive, the team essentially dies on the spot as far as activity goes. That's a difficult place to leave anyone in. I wasn't directly involved with that player or his groups, but some people I did RP with were and I've seen them around less and less afterward.

So, add ALL of that up, and it's left me in an empty place when it comes to RP that "matters." My motivation is gone, my effort is at an all-time low, and my urge to take a chance on doing something new is minimal, whether it's on that place or a different one. Like I said above, some of that is on me as a passive player who struggles to break out of an RP "comfort zone" and approach more people, but some of that is also due to circumstances that feel beyond my control. I hit the point of just doing a log a month to meet minimum activity levels, and once that starts repeating it's time to go.

All of this, to me, sums up the ebb and flow of one place after another, one player/character after another.

@Vorpal Have you been talking about alien abductions too frequently again?

Meh. People are free to design and run any type of game they want. There are no rules when it comes to theme, setting, what you want to allow and what you don't want to allow, etc.

This particular place isn't for me, but for those it does appeal to? More power to 'em. Whether it's creepy, exclusionary toward certain types of characters, too focused on the D, veers way off into unrealistic territory with characters we're used to seeing written certain ways...I don't really care. I don't think they're hurting anybody. It's easy to not pay attention to it.

Everyone is free to play or not play there based on their own preferences. Though, if you're into superhero sausage fests, this might just be your place. Bring the buns and condiments.

@Saulot That doesn't necessarily mean surreality's guess is off the mark, though.

@Lotherio Makes sense.

I usually avoid OOC Lounges and Public channels because they often get spammy as fuck with a bunch of stuff I really don't care about. That probably means I miss out on some things but if someone takes the time to page me, I will answer even if it's to say I can't play at that moment because I've got other stuff going on.

@Lotherio I can be guilty of that at times. There are a couple favorites I have that I've played on different places, but I've tried to mix it up a little bit in other cases. Part of the reason behind that is I've always been poor at OC concepts of my own so I go with comic book characters instead. There can also be settings that are different enough that it lets me try putting a different spin on someone than I might do on another place.

I lean toward some less popular characters anyway, ones that aren't usually taken up and played by others. No Wolverines, Supermen, Wonder Women, etc. for me.