@MisterBoring said in MU Peeves Thread:

My peeve remains wanting to start a character on a game somewhere knowing full well I don’t honestly know if I have the time to play enough to avoid getting idled out.

I’ve been running a game for almost 2 years, and I do miss being on the other side of the screen sometimes. Especially when there are cool concepts out there that I want to see succeed.

I was looking for something in my emails this morning, and came across one with the subject line “Oh, the drama” that was of course about RP drama and, also, 19 years old at this point.

It’s basically a TREASURE TROVE of nonsense, but I need to share my favorite line, from a player being extremely over-dramatic at me. Context is that he was VERY PARANOID that he was going to get banned, and I pointed out that Camden (my fellow co-admin at the time) had JUST told him he wasn’t in danger of being banned.

"Dylan…It’s insane not to plan for the ‘what ifs’. What if Camden gets hit by a bus?

I’m happy to say that Camden never did get hit by that bus.

@Watcher616 In the meantime, the Sith Empire is snapping up at least one world for every world the Resistance might have a chance at gaining, probably because Aryn has at least one leadership alt there. She has alts in leadership positions in every major faction (Empire, Resistance, Mandalorians/Kora), except possibly the Hutt Cartel.

@MisterBoring said in Star Wars Age of Alliances: Hadrix and Cujo:

I got an itch to go actually look at AoA today and well, even without the absolutely crap behavior from staff, this game is far too complex for my tastes.

Speaking of messes, this just hit the grid. Note the posting dates of the original message and the comment.

=========================<* 8: Game Updates - 218 *>=========================
Message: 8/218 Posted Author
Free Starter Ship Dec 09 2023 Cujo

Hello all

We’re instituting a new Chargen feature, in the form of a free starter ship. If you make a new character, and want to request a free ship once you are IC, then we offer you the newly updated Slingshot cargo hauler.

The new Slingshot comes with 200 tons of cargo space. Max Speeds of 50 MGLT in space, and 80 MGLT in atmosphere. It is still a 1 crew ship, with a bunk behind the pilot’s station, with interior room for 2 passengers to at least sit fiairly comfortably while traveling the space lanes.

In the end, we are now offering free ships out of chargen. If you make a character, and want a ship to start off with, and the new Slingshot variants sound appealing to you, then make that new character, and put in the request once you are approved and IC!

AoA Staff
===================< Comment 1 - Added Jan 26 06:09PM GMT >===================
Discordia Commented:
think Please note a few things about the starter ships. You may not resell them, pass them on to other players, or otherwise profit from the ships, beyond ther scope of what you do in regards trading/travelling. They are offered to players as a means to allow you to get up and running for travel and running cargo only.

When you no longer want/need the ship, +request to staff and we will reclaim them.

Additionally, please be aware that these ships are intended to give you a leg up. If they remain your own/regular ship is your choice, but please be aware that if you mod the ship, and later trade it back into staff/we reclaim it for inactivity, etc, you will not get back the money you paid for any modifications you added to these ships, nor will we return the mods to you to use on a new ship. Ideally, you should be looking to purchase a ship of your choice and add mods to those, as those can be resold/traded if desired. Though you still won’t get back the cost of mods if you resell the non-starter ship to staff.

Please see +bbread 8/222 and +bbread 8/225 for some of our other ship programs.

for those of you wishing to sell back ships you no longer need/want that are not the starter ship, you can sell these back to staff for half of the base credit cost you paid. Mods costs will not be returned to you.
------------------------------< +bbread 8/218 >-------------------------------

The delay in posting this is pretty interesting. Good mods are still too rare and expensive to risk losing them to such a bad trade as this policy sets up, creating a powerful incentive to hold on to modded ships (an incentive the dinosaurs likely paid no attention to, since they’d do that anyway. It’s not like anyone’s going to prevent them from hoarding ships).

And I’m sure if you ask about it, ‘It’s always been like this!’.

@Arik No idea!

@scvm babbish

Just yesterday I said I was impressed that Liberation was going strong after its rough start.

The recent alarm seems like the general slowness that happens this time of year. To compare, I only ran about 3 events during the entire holiday season on Silent Heaven, when I usually do at least 2 per week. I suspect things will gradually pick up as the solstice grows further behind us.

https://armageddonmud.boards.net/thread/1246/armageddon-mud-crumples-ground

Game owners locked the official forum but kind of like WORA/SOAPBOX/This place there was an unofficial forum discussing issues with the game. Realistically they rebooted from 20 avg to 80 avg and then in 5 months fell back to 20 avg. With dwindling numbers and systemic community issues they likely just decided it was no longer worth the effort. They publicly blamed a staff member leaking stuff but that had been happening for decades in one form or another so pinch of salt. Thread here has former staff and producers posting their thoughts.

You can give r/characterdrawing a try, for free. https://www.reddit.com/r/characterdrawing/s/jbVxrw8lKk

I got some amazing pieces done for some dnd characters.

Theres some amazing artists that float around there and you probably reach out for a commission. And this instagram artist did an amazing job with one prompt. https://www.instagram.com/p/CQ1pbVVDCsb/?utm_source=ig_embed&img_index=1

Here is some art where artists responded to my requests.

by /u/SmawlGiant
by /u/Lonely_duckling

bg3 bear

@Gashlycrumb said in Realism:

That deal where, of all the people who are involved in a situation, the one expected to do something is the one who is least empowered to be effective? Too realistic.

That PC who is rude as fuck, but also extremely touchy (eg. “How are you doing?” “How DARE you! Suggesting that I might be doing anything other than brilliantly is unforgivable insult!”) is also too damn realistic.

First of all, how dare you suggest I am extremely touchy.

so total shocker, Scott and Ruby reacted to these posts the way that like anyone who had to deal w them at literally any point as players or staffers would expect:

trying to figure out who posts under what name, smearing them to anybody who’ll listen, probably agitating to get ppl banned, and from what i’ve heard getting super paranoid about who i could be there

to keep some rando from getting sacrificed on the altar of their personality disorders, the last time i logged in to HAM except as a guest was when i claimed raven then got kicked off for a combination of making Chaucer mad and outing a sexual predator years ago, and the last time i logged in as a guest is in this thread

believe it or not it’s just that basically nobody likes either of you or enjoys tiptoeing around your explosive tempers and fragile egos, so shit gets around

@Kestrel said in How dangerous is VASpider?:

@Rinel

It’s not fun to be stalked/harassed by a mob of racist/queerphobic weirdos online, even if you feel no shame in your identity. Also the kinds of people who would do this needn’t actually say anything about you that’s remotely true in order for it to be potentially damaging, or at the very least upsetting.

Yeah, I know.

@Kestrel said in Elysium /MUSH:

@Artemis said in Elysium /MUSH:

“Those “Laws” state that if you feel the desire, physical and otherwise, to do something then you should be allowed to do it.”
bruh this the purge

it’s argentina

wow. that’s a potshot i’d expect from the writers at netflix. disappointing.

@dvoraen

Esme would have had to do so many composure checks. ❤

@moth pls be aware that matcha is delicious

@crawfish Or you can be an overachiever and do both!

laugh cry

Seriously though. Thank you for that reminder. It is very much appreciated.

On Silent Heaven, I’m open about the fact that everything is logged, and only I have access to logs. This is primarily so that I can zip up someone’s logs and send them to the player once their character has finished their time in Silent Heaven. I don’t look at logs unless there’s cause for concern raised by a player and I’ve received permission from that player. It’s been an invaluable resource when dealing with problem players.

When you launch a new game, your playerbase has little to no trust in you. They’ve been burned countless times in the past, so why would they? It’s only through repeated acts of goodwill on a near-daily basis that players can gradually begin to trust. And one wrong step can erode that trust. All you can do is apologize, take the loss, and focus on doing better.

Overall, my recommendation is to build in whatever security features you feel most comfortable with. While full logging can help in some instances, the most important thing is to be responsive to your community. When they first come to you with a problem, they’re taking a huge leap of faith that you’ll respond to their issues in a positive manner. And that’s what matters most. Even the most robust security features are pointless if you’re not out there caring for your players.

Here’s where we noticed it first:

https://jamesmendezhodes.com/blog/2018/11/10/best-practices-for-historical-gaming

I really love the idea, and love that it’s catching on. I think it’s great for keeping players from being blindsided either by something happening in a scene that they weren’t expecting, or from having their characters chewed out ICly for something that’s just part of the game world.

That was a doozy

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