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    MU Peeves Thread

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Rough and Rowdy
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    • JennJ
      Jenn @Third Eye
      last edited by

      For me… I actually don’t care. I love a slow asynch with a pose every three days as people have time. I love a snappy live that kills a few hours and is fun and done. I think all kinds of scenes and styles have their benefits and their detriments, and I’m happy to collaborate into the styles that work best. My only peeve is when folks aren’t honest about what’s going on or why.

      Of course… There are also then the moments when it all goes off the rails and you spend 4 days with broken internet angry that it’s not your pose in like, twelve scenes and they’re typing at everyone under the sun EXCEPT YOU only to come to a month later to realize your internet was not functioning and it was your pose all along in each of them and you’ve been passive aggressive snarking your friends for a week with broken internet while they’re waiting on you to get your shit together… And after a month, you do, but forgot what was happening prior and oh, hell.

      It’s been a year, y’all. 2024 is holding 2012’s beer and I’m scared. If I owe you poses, poke me. If I’ve been a dumbass and owe you apologies, poke me. If we’re all just having a bad time and need hugs and support and understanding, poke me. ❤

      We're all mad here.

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      • PavelP
        Pavel
        last edited by

        omelette

        He/Him. Opinions and views are solely my own unless specifically stated otherwise.
        BE AN ADULT

        JennJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • T
          Testament
          last edited by

          Ever since I changed jobs, my hours have gotten real weird in regards to RP. So async is pretty much how I’m going to exist save on weekends.

          I once thought that being active on 3rd shift hours was tough, I think working on 2nd shift is worse.

          I don't know what I'm doing. Poke at Seven Nations sevennations.aresmush.com port 2021

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          • N
            Nilli @Third Eye
            last edited by

            @Third-Eye This isn’t a “last two years” thing, but as someone who MU*d a lot when I was in high school/college, and then stopped and only got back to it in the last couple of years, there’s also the shift in how LONG scenes take. Two hours used to be SO LONG and now it feels like two hours just isn’t enough time to get through most scenes. AND now most of us are adults with jobs and families and other responsibilities other than writing that psych paper between poses, so carving out more than two hours for RP can be hard!

            PavelP M 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 5
            • PavelP
              Pavel @Nilli
              last edited by

              @Nilli said in MU Peeves Thread:

              other responsibilities other than writing that psych paper between poses

              Some of us are doing that too. 😛

              He/Him. Opinions and views are solely my own unless specifically stated otherwise.
              BE AN ADULT

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
              • M
                mietze @Nilli
                last edited by

                @Nilli this is so interesting because sometimes I have the opposite experience! People drift away/check out a lot sooner (I don’t think this is a bad thing at all!) but when I was at the height of my mushing availability while little social pops often weren’t very long, if there was any kind of “big” scene it would take hours. And this was in the days were you were expected to look at people to see their descs not like the first hour being taken up by entrances describing them!

                So if a timestop got dropped and combat was on or any kind of vs too, you were looking at potentially several days being unable to do anything else until the next arranged though usually that was the next night! I do my best to keep anything I run that’s social 3 hours or less (and would have loved it back in the olden days).

                but this is why second phone line was a necessity, so you weren’t blocking all phone calls for like 6 hours +

                I wonder if scenes take longer than they would have otherwise now because people are more into breaks/drifting (i love work slow all day stuff too), wheras at least on some of the games I used to play if you weren’t ready with your action/response when the GM called on you nobody was going to wait on you and you’d be skipped, which definitely had some implications sometimes. (I’m still a fan of GMs giving time limits and stuff though.)

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                • R
                  RedJellyBean @Rathenhope
                  last edited by

                  @Rathenhope This. This is exactly what goes through my head and it bites. I realize that’s probably not it. But at the same time, I can’t help thinking they’ve found something shiny and new to RP with and that’s why I feel like I’m getting the leftovers. And I know that’s silly.

                  R 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                  • R
                    Rathenhope @RedJellyBean
                    last edited by

                    @RedJellyBean Are you in my head? Are you me? 😮

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                    • AshkuriA
                      Ashkuri
                      last edited by

                      For me async is at its most useful as an easy way to pause and continue. I don’t miss being like “do you have the last couple poses, my client crashed”

                      I like async alright in one on one scenes where I plan to write heaps of shit per pose.

                      Async that goes on and on forever is something I will do if I have great vibes with a person, but as real-time is my preference and I like to stay busy, sometimes I start feeling like I’ve started outpacing my own RP and it’s hard to write two timelines. I also find it hard to pose out of these long long ones.

                      When there are multiple async scenes going on, who I pose to ‘next’ has nothing to do with how much I like the person and everything to do with how much I need to think. The scene where I’m giving my opinions on Plato’s Cave is going to be a slower pose than the scene where I’m eating cake.

                      3+ person async is death to me. This kills the frog.

                      Overall, I really like the things async lets me do (pause, RP with people in other timezones, meet new people) but for the most part if my async partner offered me async or real time, I’d choose real time without much question.

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 6
                      • tsarT
                        tsar
                        last edited by

                        I used to be a real die hard live scene RPer. I didn’t enjoy async, I didn’t want to see async, I didn’t want to LOOK IN ITS EYES.

                        Then I got a job where I’m up super early and even on the nights where I could stay up late, I’m spending that time with my family because I see less of them during the week. I have time, but the time is weird and not often all in one place except on my days off. And not everyone is available to play at 10:30 AM EST lol.

                        So, now I’ve been doing a lot of async and it’s not bad. It sure as hell beats having to leave the hobby entirely while my life is this way.

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 10
                        • JennJ
                          Jenn @Pavel
                          last edited by

                          @Pavel said in MU Peeves Thread:

                          omelette

                          dead

                          We're all mad here.

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                          • KDraygoK
                            KDraygo
                            last edited by

                            I’m definitely one of those who are guilty of not being more disciplined with my Async scenes, which I need to fix on my end. I used to be an avid live scene RPer when I first started MUSHing but back then, I had a lot more free time to dedicate to RP and the people I RP with were also mostly in the same time zone and same time slots with free time. Now, RL is a bigger obstacle which is a shame, which is also why it’s impossible for me to play on more than one game.

                            Things have changed a lot with technology and also how life has changed for people. My free RL time has reduced and instead of hashing out a scene in four hours, I’m mostly down to two hours on a week night where I can fully focus. Oddly enough, even before Ares, I’ve had really great scenes with fun RPers where we can pause the scene after one night and pick up the next night. Or, even before Ares, I’ve done async (before it was coined Async) where the log was copied to google docs and continued there before the log is posted on the wikidot site for the game.

                            This is where my personal discipline needs to be tightened up on my end, where if a good scene has to be paused, instead of going fully async, it may be better to continue with a continued live scene on the second day. Async is definitely much harder when more people are in a scene, because everyone’s schedule is fragmented and it is much harder to line up the timing. That is why I try to reserve async to one on one scenes or plot advancing scenes so everyone has a chance to contribute to progression of the plot when they can. That’s one of the strong points of async it allows more people to participate instead of people not being in the same timezone of the majority being left out.

                            In the end, there are strong pros and cons to async, the challenge is to properly juggle it so it works out for those involved.

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                            • JLoJ
                              JLo
                              last edited by

                              I’ve been relying on Async RP a lot in the last year. And I’m glad for all the people who’ve put up with the stop-and-go pace of my life. Their RP has been super valuable to me. And the odd public or group scene that I’ve actually been able to make have been like pit stops on the way.

                              But there are definitely limits to the format. One of which, is group scenes. Gathering disparate people on competing schedules and differing time zones into the same virtual room at the same time can be like catching lightning in a bottle. But passing a pose baton between those same few people whenever works is more like powering a house party with infrequent bolts of static electricity.

                              So, it’s totally not a replacement for traditional pacing. But it is a huge relief when it’s all that I have time for. I do keep other peoples’ tastes in mind though and don’t tend to reach out, answer requests, or cold call for RP as much as I otherwise would. Because, while asking for RP can be awkward in general, asking with the caveat of ‘hey - I just met you, would you like to RP in a private scene with me over the course of several days?’ feels a little extra.

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
                              • L. B. HeuschkelL
                                L. B. Heuschkel
                                last edited by

                                I prefer live scenes where the immersion is 110% and the speed is breakneck for four hours straight. It’s just – health, age, and real-life geography make that pretty much a utopic fantasy most of the time. Sounds like I’m not the only one, either.

                                So to me, Async (and Glacial, the ultra-slow asyncs) is the lifesaver – I can do those or I can step away entirely. I balked some at first, I’ll admit – but I have also come to appreciate, as a writer, that having more time sometimes also means being able to provide a more interesting narrative.

                                I advise against large asyncs, though. Passing the speaker token around between six people like that is… well, little short of torture. Three to four seems to work, with room for an extra if enough of the three to four are faster.

                                Any pronouns. Come to Chincoteague. We have ponies. http://keys.aresmush.com

                                JennJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 4
                                • JennJ
                                  Jenn @L. B. Heuschkel
                                  last edited by

                                  @L-B-Heuschkel
                                  For large asynch scenes, I’ve found really great luck with 6-8 people in them if it has a GM or ST involved. I use the layout of 1-2 GM poses per day, every 12 or 24 hours. In between each GM pose, every other player is allowed 1-2 poses in any order they want to do so in between. People know to check in either once or twice a day as pre-agreed and no one has to wait to post for ‘their turns’ and can do it at their own conveniences in between each story move forward via scene runner.

                                  We're all mad here.

                                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
                                  • H
                                    heysparky
                                    last edited by

                                    I love async as someone who struggles in live scenes - especially large scenes or scenes with ‘stakes’ like combat, or STed stuff, time limits and Important Story Things.

                                    I recently asked someone for advice on how to deal with those types of scenes and was sorta embarrassed to do so in the first place and then doubly so when the response was ‘I don’t really struggle with those, can’t help, sorry (paraphrase, and they were very nice)’ and was like … augh, I know it’s not just me, but it’s meeeeee. >_<

                                    SO. Async ❤ ❤ ❤

                                    Getting new poses in async is like an advent calendar! Checking for poses is part of my routine. Love async. Didn’t love it before Ares. Ares makes async so easy (which may be part of the rise of these types of scenes as the Ares community adopts them).

                                    AshkuriA 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 5
                                    • GashlycrumbG
                                      Gashlycrumb @Floof
                                      last edited by Gashlycrumb

                                      @Floof said in MU Peeves Thread:

                                      I’ve been trying to just be like fuck it guess I’ll just be awful then! But it’s SO HARD.

                                      Cheering you on. This is why my mother wrote “Anything worth doing is worth doing badly,” on her piano.

                                      It’s irritating that “It’s only a game,” so often comes up in the context of, “You’re wrong to have hurt feelings about it,” but seldom in the context of, “Relax, you’re allowed to suck, it’s not your Ph.D. dissertation.”

                                      Play for fun. With typoes, grammatical errors, and another beer if you want. You don’t have to impress people. I’ve had a lot of fun with people whose characters have orbs. Some of them have even been limpid pools. I’ve had fun with players who have limited English vocabularies and used me as a thesarus. I’ve had fun with players who regularly fall asleep at the keys. I’ve had fun with players who are emergency services workers and just dissapeared mid-scene.

                                      And also, give people a break. Don’t dismiss them as sucky just because they don’t impress you the first time you see them. Let people enjoy the hobby instead of feeling like they shouldn’t show up if they’re not at the top of their game that day.

                                      Also, people. You don’t suck. I’ve been playing these silly things since, uh, 1994 and I have yet to meet a MUer who could not write bestselling novels for John “See Jack Litigate. Litigate, Jack, Litigate” Grisham if they’d just get paid enough to try. I have RPed on MUs with Jim Butcher and Neil Gaiman and neither of them developed the gushy “they’re just the best RPer” groupies that your average staff-alt gathers. Hell, Gaiman essentially said it was too hard.

                                      "This is Liberty Hall; you can spit on the mat and call the cat a bastard!"
                                      – A. Bertram Chandler

                                      somasatoriS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 17
                                      • AshkuriA
                                        Ashkuri @heysparky
                                        last edited by

                                        @heysparky I’ve been in a lot of ST/story/stakes things you ran or participated in real-time on Arx, seemed to go alright there?

                                        juniperskyJ H 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 2
                                        • juniperskyJ
                                          junipersky Administrators @Ashkuri
                                          last edited by

                                          @imstillhere

                                          Isn’t it funny how our perception of things can be so different from what other people perceive?

                                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                          • somasatoriS
                                            somasatori @Gashlycrumb
                                            last edited by

                                            @Gashlycrumb said in MU Peeves Thread:

                                            @Floof said in MU Peeves Thread:

                                            I’ve been trying to just be like fuck it guess I’ll just be awful then! But it’s SO HARD.

                                            … but seldom in the context of, “Relax, you’re allowed to suck, it’s not your Ph.D. dissertation.”

                                            I appreciate this advice since these days I am frequently MU*ing to avoid working on this very thing. All the while frequently expecting the same level of detail & quality from myself when I am, for instance, pretending to be a vampire from Albuquerque.

                                            they/them

                                            GashlycrumbG 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
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